Part VIII.b: The Miracle Pine Tree, Rikuzentakata, Japan

slide presentation (excerpted from the in-development book Unnatural Disaster)
Initially presented at The Asian Art Society of Australia talk series Nature in Japan, Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, 2018
Presented as a Zoom keynote for Mutable Technologies - Tracing Changing Environments, RMIT University, Melbourne & ICC & Musashi University, Tokyo, 2021
Presented at VCA, Melbourne, 2025

Depicting Nature

Nicholas Poussin - French Landscape With A Calm (1651); Hubert Robert - Demolition of St. Jean Church in Greve (1800)
Caspar David Friedrich - Sea of Ice (1824); W. M. Turner - Slave Ship (1840)
John Martin - The Great Day Of His Wrath (1853); Claude Monet - Water Lilies (1916)

Controlling Nature

Robert Smithson - Spiral Jetty (1970); Christo - Valley Curtain (1972)
Walter de Maria - Earth Room (1977); Joseph Beuys - 7000 Oaks (1982)
Thomas Hirschhorn - Too Too-Much Much (2010); Olafur Eliasson - River Bed (2014)
Ai Weiwei - Straight (2013)

Siting Rikuzentaka

Satellite views & maps

Destroying Rikuzentaka

Map of Japan; Japan Meteorological Bureau wave height simulation
3/11 tsunami striking the pine grove; the aftermath

Preserving Ippon Matsu - The Miracle Pine

Partially cleared site with protected pine tree covering; sectioning the pine tree
Sectioning the pine tree; fully cleared site
Marketing of The Miracle Pine
The pine tree in Noh theatre design
Transporting & reconstructing the pine tree from Rikuzentakata
Reassembling the fabricated pine tree on site

Visiting The Miracle Pine

The site with cleared zones, cyclone fences, extant bridge, new water lock, general construction

Reconstructing The Miracle Pine

The fabricated pine tree with memorial stone & adjacent destroyed youth hostel

Reconstructing Rikuzentaka

The Rikuzentakata sea wall
Memorial grave stones awaiting relocation; earth conveyor
The Bridge of Hope earth conveyor system, Kesenuma

Reconstructing Tohoku

Ishinomaki (2011 & 2013)
Minamisoma (2011 & 2013)
Natori (2011 & 2013)
Otsuchi (2011 & 2013)
Minamisanriku (2011 & 2013)
Rikuzentakata (2011 & 2013)
Ippon Matsu - Rikuzentakata (2013)

Reconstructing Nature

Shimomura Kanzan - Autumn Among Trees (1907)
The Night Walker from Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke (1996)
The Great Tohoku North East Earthquake & Tsunami (2013)
The Forest King Spirit growing a tree in Hayao Miyazaki's Tottoro (1988)
Hiroshima atomic bomb blast (1945)
Naoya Hatakeyama - Blast #4516 (1995); Blast #15 (1995)
Naoya Hatakeyama - A Bird/Blast #130 (1995); Rikuzentakata (2012-2014)
Manabu Ikeda - Existence (2004); History of Rise & Fall (2006)
Manabu Ikeda - Foretoken (2008)
Nobuo Sekine - Phase – Mother Earth (1968) & (1969)

Thanks to Jackie Menzies (TAASA).

Text © Philip Brophy 2018. Images © respective copyright holders