Fukushima nuclear disaster: An artist s view 10 years later
Japanese artist and filmmaker Hikaru Fujii told DW about the importance of embedding the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in public memory.
Ten years ago, the Japanese prefecture witnessed an earthquake and tsunami that triggered an accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant, causing a nuclear disaster whose effects were only preceded by those in Chernobyl in 1986.
In its aftermath, artist and filmmaker Hikaru Fujii documented the political and ecological crisis that resulted from the collapse of the nuclear plant. Fuji, who believes that artistic production implies a close relationship between history and society, created the project Les nucléaires et les choses in 2019, in which he reconstructed the history of the affected places, focusing on the consequences of the disaster and discussing the memory of the catastrophe.
Environmental groups say the crippled nuclear plant's decommissioning effort is hopeless. Some local people fear it is not safe to return to communities that were beneath the radioactive plume.