“LOST IN JAPAN”

"In 2021, Miyuki Okuyama walked 400 km through northeastern Japan, on her way to the place where she grew up. Along the way she passed the area that changed its character, by the earthquake and Tsunami 10 years earlier. Her motivation for this slow travel a decade after the disaster was to view her home closely and intimately by walking for 1 month. This primitive manner of traveling gave a chance to observe the land’s progress and/or regress, and to capture her home at the verge of changing or even disappearing. “Michinoku Homeward: Walking toward the Northeast” is the poetic report of this journey.

The Lost World is a project about the desolate places of Japan by visual artist Maan Limburg. When she traveled through the countryside by van in 2018, she noticed an endless amount of empty houses. Almost 8,5 million (13,6% of all) Japanese houses stand abandoned according to the Japanese Housing and Land Survey of 2018. When she actually got into one of these places, she found a perfect stillness and a deafening amount of memories of people she’d never encountered. The Lost World shows an intimate glimpse into a world of buildings, nature and the overwhelming absence of people.

Lost in Japan brings both photo projects together. Both Miyuki and Maan look from a contemplative view, with an eye for the small human detail, in penetrating work that maps the decline and resilience of people and nature."