Miniature models of communities devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami went on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo on Dec. 13.
Miniature models of communities devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami went on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo on Dec. 13.
The 1:500-scale models, based on aerial photos taken before the disaster, are the work of hundreds of students from 15 Japanese universities and recreate 11 settlements along the Sanriku coast of Miyagi and Iwate prefectures in plain white. The eighty-odd models show individual homes and railway stations in each community.
Osamu Tsukihashi, 43, an associate professor at Kobe University's Graduate School of Engineering, helped organize the project.
"With entire neighborhoods swept away by the tsunami, memories are beginning to fade of what the communities looked like before the disasters," Tsukihashi said. "Thinking about the rebuilding process and the possibility of moving the communities to higher ground, I felt it would be significant to leave behind, in a visual form, what the communities looked like before the disasters."
Yoko Takehana, a first-year master's student at Waseda University, created a model of Tanohata, Iwate Prefecture.
"I visited the village in May and October," she said. "Making the model has conjured up all sorts of emotions.”
After the Tokyo exhibition finishes, the models will be taken to the settlements they depict, where the organizers plan to hold workshops at which residents will color the scenery.
The models will be on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo from Dec. 13 until Jan. 15. Admission is free.