The Horiuchi Foundation will soon present a series of photographs by Tomohiro Muda as part of an exhibition entitled Icons of Time: Memories of the Tsunami that Struck Japan.
This will be the renowned Japanese photographer’s first exhibition in the UK and appropriately falls on the six year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan’s northeastern coast on 11 March, 2011. The photographs on view will be shown at the recently restored and reopened Fitzrovia Chapel, a stunning Grade II* listed building which was previously the chapel for the old Middlesex Hospital. The exhibition will also form a satellite event for Photo London fair, which runs at Somerset House from 17 – 21 May and be part of Fitzrovia Photo London Discovery Night, when the participating galleries in the fair will stay open until 8:30pm.
Icons of Time is made up of haunting images of day-to-day artefacts that were left behind in the wake of the tsunami. Muda originally set out just three weeks after the event on a mission to photograph and document the conditions of the affected areas but he found witnessing the devastation so soon after-the-fact too painful to continue. Instead, around nine months later, he returned to the scene and photographed roughly 5,000 items. Icons of Time will feature a small selection of these pictures.
Says Tomohiro Muda, ‘The objects featured in my works may appear to be mere debris, things abandoned by the tsunami, but they’re not. Each item belonged to someone and suggests the presence of someone who is no longer present. In this exhibition, these fragments tell stories of a post-tsunami landscape and allow us to imagine the activity in these areas before the tsunami.’
Icons of Time will be on view from from 17-21 May, 2017 at the Fitzrovia Chapel; Fitzroy Place, 2 Pearson Square, London, W1T 3BF; Wednesday – Sunday 11AM – 6PM; Admission: FREE
For more information: https://www.horiuchifoundation.com/portfolio-item/icons-of-time/
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