KESENNUMA, Miyagi Prefecture--Public museums are displaying damaged household items and other “relics” from the 2011 Tohoku disaster as reminders of the preciousness and fragility of everyday life.
The Rias Ark Museum of Art in Kesennuma and the Fukushima Museum in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Fukushima Prefecture, opened the special exhibitions ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that devastated coastal areas on March 11, 2011.
The items include a warped school chair and the frame of a burnt scooter.
“By displaying the disaster relics, the exhibition aims to help local residents and their descendants recognize again how precious their normal day-to-day lives are,” said Hiroyasu Yamauchi, a curator of the Rias Ark Museum of Art. “We also hope that visitors gain the wisdom to protect things that are important to their daily lives in the wake of a natural disaster.”
The museum’s exhibition, showing a total of 500 relics, photos and other materials related to the disaster, is a permanent display.
The prefectural Fukushima Museum’s exhibition, featuring about 100 disaster relics and photo panels, will run through March 21.
Disaster-related items preserved by the Rias Ark Museum of Art are also on display at the Meguro Museum of Art in Tokyo’s Meguro Ward through March 21.