The small fishing town of Otsuchi, in Iwate Prefecture, was probably the most destroyed by the tsunami town that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. Roughly ten percent of the population was killed or went missing and sixty percent of the residential buildings sustained damage.
This project puts images of inhabitants of Otsuchi that survived the tsunami together with recovered family photographs that were swept away by the tsunami by putting them together, past and present. Furthermore, the photographer picks up the colors found in the destroyed photographs to color his own portraits of the residents of Otsuchi. The colors constitute a bridge between the recovered photographs and photographs of the present as a dialogue is established between them.
Otsuchi’s “Future Memories” intend to reflect on the dynamic relationship between family photographs and our memories. The tsunami caused considerable material damage, killed people and destroyed entire communities, but above all, the survivors also face the intangible loss of their own memories and identities in which family photographs play a fundamental role.