Still from New Trees, 2025

In Noyuki, Katsurao Village, Fukushima Prefecture, the evacuation order was lifted after the area was designated as a Specified Reconstruction and Revitalization Base. Yet this lifting was not intended to facilitate the return of residents—it was primarily for land use purposes. Fourteen years after the disaster, areas where returning home remains difficult still exist.
During my month-long stay in the village in 2024, I witnessed the nightly transport of massive wind turbine blades. Illuminated by floodlights, their white surfaces shimmered as they advanced, guided by trailers and workers—a sight almost divine, like a sacred procession. It was a rare and extraordinary landscape that could only be seen here, now.
At the same time, the rows of white structures piercing through the mountains stirred a strange unease and ambivalent feelings within me. I still don’t know how to reconcile the lightness of the word “reconstruction” with the weight of time that continues to flow through this land. Yet, as a visitor standing before this landscape, I feel that what we can do, perhaps the only thing we can do is to preserve that sense of dissonance through imagination.