We are holding an exhibition by photographer Tomomi Morita, entitled“Minamata and Noto, Viewed from Here.”Morita, who has been visiting and photo-documenting Minamata since 2016, is currently living in Minamata and continues to chronicle the landscape through the eyes of a resident. In addition to photographs of Minamata, this exhibition features photographic records of the destruction caused by the 2024 earthquake on the Noto Peninsula.
How does the landscape of the past live on, and how is it reflected in the present? We hope visitors think about and envisage this as they look at the photographs.

Artist’s comment

I descend to the beach from Myojinzaki, a cape with a sweeping view of Minamata Bay and the Yatsushiro (Shiranui) Sea.
I come to a park called Eco Park Minamata.
This site, which used to be 58 or so hectares of ocean, was built from the mid-1970s through 1990 on landfill made up of sludge containing Minamata Disease-causing substances, along with contaminated marine products.

I spend my days wandering around the reclaimed land of Minamata Bay. The generation in Minamata who knows the landscape of the past is gradually disappearing.
As a way of retracing the disappearing memories of Minamata, even though I can’t touch them I have visited landscapes I can see in my mind’s eye through people’s stories, as well as the sea fig trees indicating that this site was once ocean.

I wonder at the way the landscape here can seem so different depending on the person. Through the perspectives of the people who live here and their emotional ties to the location, I have come to sense the potential for the landscape to become a place one can look at together with countless people.

In addition to a selection of photos from my life in Minamata, like the reclaimed land of Minamata Bay, the beaches, the landscape of the cape, and the sea figs, this exhibition also features a photographic record of the damage caused by the Noto Peninsula earthquake.
I would like to carry on documenting the scenery of different parts of Noto together with as many people as possible, as I cannot keep up with it alone.

The scenery of each day leads to a view of the future.
I would be happy if everyone could look at my photos and get a picture in their mind of how the past lives on in the present and future.

*Sea figs
It is said that the roots of the sea figs growing in Myojinzaki absorb the seawater of Minamata Bay.
I realized that looking at the sea figs was the same as looking at Minamata Bay, so in my photos I wanted to conduct fixed point observation of the trees as they change bit by bit.

*Program is subject to change