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Robert Hutchison: Memory Landscapes - Tsunami Infrastructure along the Tohoku Coastline of Japan


  • Mini Mart City Park 6525 Ellis Avenue South Seattle, WA, 98108 United States (map)

15m Tsunami Wall, Nijuichihama Fishing Port, Kesennuma, Miyagi

‘Memory Landscapes’ is a conceptual project exploring the power of collective memory in designing for certain futures resulting from natural disaster. Focusing on the Tohoku coastline of Japan that was devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, the exhibition combines a close photographic study of existing sociological, geological, and constructed conditions with a series of parafictional architectural proposals that reconsider the role of coastal infrastructure through the transformation of existing tsunami walls to public space. The project was informed by Hutchison’s research in Japan in 2023 as a U.S./Japan Creative Fellow, as well as residencies at MacDowell and Loghaven.

Cenotaph to Pay Tribute to Victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake, Unosumai, Iwate, Japan

Artist Opening Sat, June 8th 12 - 8 pm (Artist talk at 5 pm)