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

June 1st - June 30, 2024

‘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.