Ragazine – Conversation with Jan Smith
Chuck Hauput of the art magazine, Ragazine included me in the July-August 2012 issue. I was asked to pick one of my favorite images from Cesium Tours (Fukushima) and explain the history behind it. I picked Hina Matsuri, and talk about what the dolls tell about the abandoned places I explored The conversation was published today and you can go to their site or read the conversation here.
Hina Matsuri
Hina Matsuri is part of a series of images that explores the permanently evacuated zones around the Fukushima nuclear plant, one year after the disaster. These places were inhabited and are spaces to which people have a right to belong. It is this massive loss of permanence that I portray through photographs of abandoned personal items. I use triptychs in tribute to the Japanese haiku.
Every item found tells a story, and the entire zone felt like an archeological site. Scattered clothes and dirty dishes indicated a hurried departure; broken windows spoke of the looting. Yet there were things I saw whose meaning escaped me, although I knew they were significant. This triptych is precisely such an example.
Many homes had dolls laid-out in celebratory displays. Indeed, the week prior to the disaster was “Girls’ Day” or Hina Matsuri. Families with daughters decorated their home with dolls, often showing them the entire week. The dolls in this image are likely Korean, and speak of the family’s trip there at some earlier time. The tradition started during the Heian period, when straw dolls were floated downstream to the sea. As they drifted they snared troubles and bad spirits, taking them away.