New Habitations from North to East: 11 years after 3.11 (photos by Takuro Toyama, poems by Natsumi Seo) will be published by YYY PRESS. This book will be available at bookstores and through e-commerce websites starting in late September.

It has been about a year and a half since Seo and I discussed the possibility of creating something while we were traveling in northern Iwate prefecture for this project. After traveling with photographer Takuroh Toyama and designer Natsuko Yoneyama, a book of photographs and poems was born. We hope you will take a look at it.

New Habitations from North to East: 11 years after 3.11
Photography by Takuroh Toyama
Poetry by Natsumi Seo
Book design by Natsuko Yoneyama
Editing by Satoko Shibahara
Translation by Renna Okubo and Sam Bett

Published by YYY PRESS

Language | Japanese and English *English poems will be available as an appendix
312 pages, W188 × H263 mm
¥5500E

Eleven years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011. During this period, the affected areas along the Tohoku coastline have built huge seawalls, raised land, and created higher ground to create “new towns.” At the same time, large-scale reconstruction work was carried out simultaneously in the affected areas, resulting in towns that at first glance appear similar to each other. However, if we look at each of them, we find traces of people’s lives in each area, and these traces appear in the landscape as subtle differences.

Since the Great East Japan Earthquake, artist and poet Natsumi Seo has visited Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture and an increasing number of other areas hit by natural disasters in recent years, drawing pictures and writing while considering the words of the local people and recording the scenery.
In 2022, just 10 years after the 3.11, She has decided to compile the trajectory of her visits to the disaster-stricken areas into a book. Photographer Takuroh Toyama followed the path from the northern part of Iwate Prefecture to the central part of Ibaraki Prefecture from the fall of 2022 to the spring of 2023, connecting the dots and capturing the current landscape of each area.

The journey of the photo shoot, which took place in several stages, covered a distance of 700 kilometers. Sometimes together, sometimes individually, the two artists visited the disaster-stricken areas and captured what they saw and heard in photographs and words.
The book, which incorporates the photographs taken by Toyama from the perspective of a traveler who maintains a certain distance from the subject, and the voices of the land Seo has heard over the 11 years since the disaster, reveals multiple layers in which the present and the past, the distant and the near, intersect in a complex way.
Please take a look at the “Scenes of New Habitations” that emerge from the subtle differences in each region.

The ground approaches, the mountain definitely becomes lower, and the sky closer
The new town still does not feel lived in enough
But regardless of that, there is beauty here
Where is the beauty in this landscape, I thought
But perhaps they meant the light

—

As wide as it can be, beautifully blue
After the destruction, what was conceived with much care
Was a landscape no one could have ever expected

—

I think that I can understand anyone who has made any of those choices
Complicated, complex, and delicate time
I too am one of those
Who could not return for 11 years

—

I was born on this new ground
Mother and father say they have lived below this layer
To me this is my home
To the two of them, to the adults of this town
What’s below, what’s said to be here
Is their home

——From the poems by Natsumi Seo

Takuroh Toyama
Photographer. Born in Miyazaki Prefecture in 1988. From around 2010, Toyama began photographing to document a life event. After holding a solo exhibition in 2012, his activities have been centralized around exhibiting and production of photo books. Toyama also takes on commission work with a focus on art, music and fashion. Photo books include Sight (2018) and Devenir (2021), and exhibitions include Devenir 2022/11/11–11/27 (Ao-hata Bookstore, 2022).

Natsumi Seo
Painter and writer. Born in Tokyo in 1988. Seo creates images and texts inspired by the records of words and landscapes of the local people. After the Great East Japan Earthquake she relocated to Rikuzentakata in Iwate Prefecture and started working with Haruka Komori. Since, she has been living temporarily in Sendai and Marumori-cho, Miyagi Prefecture while conducting research and art production. Her publications include Awai yuku koro—Rikuzentakata, Shinsaigo wo ikiru (The fleeting—Living in the post-diaster Rikuzentakata), Double Layered Town/A Song to Replace Our Positions (2021).