Noi Sawaragi: Notes on Art and Current Events 30

A Restatement: The Art of ‘Ground Zero’ (Part 10)
Nukes and Niigata III


Anne Graham – Shinohara’s House (2012) Installation view at the Kozaburo Shinohara House, 
Gokahama, Niigata. Photo courtesy the Water and Land – Niigata Art Festival organizing committee

It is well known these days that in 1945 Niigata (hereafter meaning Niigata City) was picked alongside Kokura as a target for the atomic bomb. Ultimately two bombs were dropped, on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9). The latter of these was actually intended for Kokura, but poor weather conditions over the city forced the pilot to divert to his secondary target. It is thought that a total of four atomic bombs were produced as a part of the Manhattan Project. The first was detonated in a test in the desert of New Mexico, meaning there were still three that could be used on the enemy. With the end of the war imminent, two of these three bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and as the plan to bomb Kokura had earlier ended in failure, there was still a distinct possibility that the remaining bomb would be dropped on Niigata. In fact, because Japan surrendered soon after the two atomic bombings, and possibly for various other reasons (its distance from the B-29 bases and its scale), Niigata was ultimately spared this fate. However, given that, as touched on earlier, a mock atomic bomb had already been dropped on Nagaoka, a city in the same prefecture as Niigata, as one of a series of practice drops, it would be fair to say that behind-the-scenes preparations for dropping an atomic bomb on Niigata were steadily being carried out.

It has only been in recent years that the very term “mock atomic bomb” has become known. Similarly, people at the time were not made aware of the existence even of the term “atomic bomb.” In Hiroshima it was called “pika-don” (literally, “flash-bang”) due to its association with a bright flash and loud explosion, while the government, who partly grasped its true nature, sought to conceal the destructive power of the atomic bombs by referring to them as “shingata-bakudan,” or “new bombs” (we still don’t really know what we are not being informed of).

Speaking of not being informed, among the terms I have only recently become familiar with is “atomic bomb evacuation.” An atomic bomb evacuation is when people flee a targeted area in anticipation of the dropping of an atomic bomb. And it was in none other than Niigata that this actually occurred.

Regarding this atomic bomb evacuation, some surprising information is revealed on the blog of Niigata municipal assemblyman Hitoshi Nakayama. For reference, the URL is http://green.ap.teacup.com/nakayama/121.html, but the contents can be summarized as follows.

On learning that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were “shingata-bakudan,” Niigata prefecture dispatched officials to Hiroshima. Although they did not make it to the affected area, on the way they visited the Ministry of Home Affairs, where they learnt that Niigata city was one of the targets of this new weapon. When informed of this, the prefecture convened an extraordinary meeting. After heated discussions, as if to defy the central government’s policy, they decided on the “complete and immediate evacuation” of the citizens. And so it was that the first atomic bomb evacuation became a reality.

In the end, this evacuation was unnecessary, but since the events of March 11 we can no longer laugh off this evacuation as a stupid plan. Even now the genpatsu-shinsai (nuclear power plant earthquake disaster) is not under control, and despite pollution on a par with that of a de jure radiation-controlled area continuing to appear in spots here and there, more than a few local municipalities are unable to officially evacuate residents because their hands are tied by national government policy.

As these examples show, the connections between things nuclear and Niigata are both diverse and deep-seated. Even after the war, when weapons of mass destruction in the form of atomic bombs were replaced by the “peaceful use of atomic energy” in the form of nuclear power, the prefecture has continued to have a relationship with things nuclear. In particular, I cannot forget the day in 2007 when the ground on which the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant is situated buckled during the Chuetsu Offshore Earthquake, following which television broadcast live pictures of black smoke rising from part of the facility. At the time I was living in an apartment in London where I had been invited as a researcher, and I shuddered with fear when I saw the footage on the Internet. If it had escalated into a major accident in which large amounts of radioactive material were released, even Tokyo would have been in danger. From the other side of the world I arranged for stable iodine tablets and protective masks to be delivered to my family. It was that earthquake and accident in Niigata that spurred me to begin investigating in earnest the safety of nuclear power.

It was thanks to this, I ought to say, that on March 15, when the plume of radioactive material that had leaked as a result of the nuclear reactor meltdown (although those on television were already using this term in the immediate aftermath of the accident, they quickly switched to the phrase, “damage to the fuel rods”) triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami reached Tokyo, I came very close to fleeing with my wife and child to the west of the country. Because we had stocked up on water, fuel and other essentials, we did not have to resort to “panic buying.” Neither were we misled by the “reports” that the nuclear reactors “wouldn’t meltdown” or that radioactive material “wouldn’t reach Tokyo.”

And so it is that for me this part of the country is associated with the memories of nightmares concerning things nuclear. On the one hand Niigata was where the country’s first local citizen-administered referendum to decide whether or not to build a nuclear power plant was held, the result of which was an overwhelming victory for those opposed. It was also where Tohoku Electric Power was forced to withdraw its plan to build a nuclear power plant in what was then the town of Maki (which was incorporated into Niigata city as part of a 2005 municipal merger). The referendum held here in 1996 attracted a turnout of 86.29 percent, with more than 60 percent of residents indicating they were firmly opposed to the construction of the nuclear power plant.


Views of Kakumihama in related print materials: Left: Kakumihama Monogatari: Kieta mura no kiroku (The tale of Kakumihama: Record of the village that disappeared) (Wano no Mado Sosho) and right: Photo collection: Kakumihama (Makimachi Shosho) both by Fumio Saito.

The planned construction site was a coastal area surrounded on three sides by mountains called Kakumihama (located in what is now Nishikan-ku, Niigata city). Apparently the site is now a deserted, lonesome place where Tohoku Electric Power signboards remain standing from the time when construction was still planned. In the Edo period, however, it was the site of a settlement that grew up around a small fishing village, known as the place where the “Echigo no dokukeshi,” or “Echigo antidote,” originated. There is in fact a reason why the settlement declined. Perhaps due to the topography of the sea floor, since ancient times it has frequently been exposed to an erosion phenomenon called “makuridashi,” or “roll back,” in which the land adjacent to the sea is completely washed away. It is said that as a result of this cumulative damage the shoreline of the village retreated as far as 600 meters from where it once was. Gradually the villagers came to rely on work as migrant workers, and when demand for the local “antidote” also declined under pressure from the modern pharmaceutical industry, there was nothing they could do to curb the relentless depopulation. It was against this backdrop that in 1969 the proposal to build a nuclear power plant on this site was first put forward by Tohoku Electric Power.

Thinking about it now, there could hardly be a more contradictory proposal. This is because it called for building a nuclear power plant in a settlement that inevitably declined precisely because of an erosion effect so severe it was known as “makuridashi,” requiring additional measures to stabilize the ground and prevent flooding. It was not until the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, however, that such irrationalities became common knowledge among the public.

Although it has already ended, the Water and Land – Niigata Art Festival 2012, which was staged in Niigata, established a venue near Kakumihama, or Maki as it was once known, in Gokahama. Unfortunately I was unable to see the exhibits there, which consisted of work by Anne Graham at Kozaburo Shinohara’s house and work by Irina Zatulovskaya at Toshiyoshi Abe’s house. Apparently visitors to the latter could also view a work in which traces were inscribed directly in the sand at Gokahama.


Left: Anne Graham – Shinohara’s House (detail) (2012) Installation view at the Kozaburo Shinohara House, 
Gokahama, Niigata. Right: Irina Zatulovskaya – 100 chopsticks from “Basyo.com (barefoot)” May 30, 2012, Gokahama, Niigata. Photos courtesy the Water and Land – Niigata Art Festival organizing committee


Irina Zatulovskaya – Mt. Fuji reflected in five mirrors and other works from “Basyo.com (barefoot),” installation view at the Toshiyoshi Abe House, Gokahama, Niigata. Photo courtesy the Water and Land – Niigata Art Festival organizing committee

Although a venue was not established at the actual site of the proposed nuclear power plant, the former was a typical private dwelling that was relocated from Kakumihama, and this along with the fact that several exhibits were established very near the site suggested to me that the organizers of the festival were sending a strong message. In the not too distant future I want to see with my own eyes this place called Kakumihama, a place that was once known for beautiful “singing sand” worthy of a festival of “water and land,” but also a place whose very existence was threatened by the terrifying “makuridashi.”

Water and Land – Niigata Art Festival ran from July 14 to December 24, 2012.

Noi Sawaragi: Notes on Art and Current Events 1-6

 

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