Ichiro Endo

http://www.tokyo-ws.org/english/residence/2012/09/ichiro-endo.shtml

Future Labo

This is the name of the project that I'm working on in Japan. I am with a group of Japanese artists traveling around the Tohoku region, one of the most badly effected areas during the tsunami of March 2011. The coastal towns and villages were all but destroyed and many people lost family friends and their homes. Three years later and a lot has changed, however the signs are still clear and damage is very present. People are still in shock and finding it hard to come to terms with what happened to them. There are many people still living in temporary housing with no fixed departure date or news of being rehoused. Plans are in place to build large sea walls to protect against another disaster, however the proposals seem to be at odds with the lives and livelihoods of the people living here, not many of them want to see their views and relationship with the sea obscured, plus there is a lot of evidence to say that a wall would not work.
I am currently staying in a hotel which is directly on the seafront, the woman who runs and owns it is somewhat of a local hero, she survived being swept 3 times in the sea whilst saving the lives of others. She survived by being pulled to safety, at the time she was unconscious. 
The hotel is the main building shown in the clip linked;
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_m8jLnOYzfg&feature=youtu.be

It is a lovely place and hard to think that just 3 years ago a 30m wave ploughed through this place and caused untold damage.
Last night there was a small earthquake here and that scared the hell out of me, just a tiny tremble. What a full scale quake and tsunami must feel like dose not bare thinking about.

I wont post loads of images of the destruction, you have seen them all before, so instead I show you the crew:

Haruka Ito

Hiroshi Ashikaga

Ichiro Endo

Mototoshi Abe

Yoi Kawakubo

Tomo Yukimashi

And below is an image of the "Go For Future" bus that we're traveling around in.

The way forward in Japan

This is me looking for trouble and finding it.

In Japan

I haven't had much of a chance to post yet, so here's the first one.
This fine creature is a deer, and was part of a performance put on just for our group, which is made up of a jolly band of Japanese artists and me. I am now being called to get involved with some more crazy activities... more later.

Japan

I'm off to Japan for a month, I will be post some updates here.