FUKUSHIMA, AUTORADIOGRAPHY

This is a juxtaposition of images of the works of Japanese photographer Kagaya Masamichi and the botanist Mori Satoshi’s photographic images of the autoradiographs of diverse organisms and products, combined with Park Chan-kyong’s photo works taken in Fukushima in 2019.

Forming a contrast to the black and white autoradiographic images that are full of scientific precision and solemnity, Park Chan-kyong has scanned the landscape of a spring day in the post-catastrophic region. Without the black and white images that have been inserted into the flow of the scenery, the landscape simply looks like that of a small town of suburbia.

The autoradiographs and Park Chan-kyong’s photographs, alike, attempt to unravel the truths of the radioactive accident and the post-disaster reality. However, both constantly fail to reach their goals completely; the former because of the non-present-ness of its x-ray images, the latter because of the invisibleness of the radioactivity. Nevertheless, the audiences may be able to have a glimpse of the overall image of the disaster through their encounter with these images. This is the experience that the artist calls “the deadlock between images and textual information.” (MMCA)

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2023 The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C.

2019  National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul