Trauma and healing: Artists support Tohoku through film, sand and seawalls

Fourteen years after tsunami disaster, Japanese artists have created new spaces to connect

Artist Takanosuke Yasui stands on a boom lift while painting a mural on a seawall in the Ogatsucho district of Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, in 2022. He has helped transform an area once dominated by imposing concrete walls into an outdoor museum. (© Seawall Museum Ogatsu)

CHIHIRO ISHIKAWA

March 11, 2025 08:20 JST

TOKYO -- How does one begin to heal after tragedy strikes? It is a question that persists in Japan as the country continues to mourn the more than 18,000 people who died or remain missing from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeastern coast on March 11, 2011.

Three Japanese artists, all working in different mediums, grappled with this question after finding themselves in unexpected roles -- helping others confront and process the impact of disaster.