Gospel, the Best Public Good News

The Exhibition began on Saturday at 10:00 am. All 22 pieces of artwork by 9 artists have now found their corners and are showing their beauty under spotlights in the exhibition room at the Iwaki Cultural Centre. We began with prayers led by Dr. Kanda, the leader of the hosting organization, Friends with the Voiceless International (FVI). FVI did not do any conventional marketing of the exhibition except for their website and small postcards that they distributed to some local churches in Tokyo and Fukushima. Just a few minutes after the opening a reporter from a local Fukushima newspaper showed up.

I've learned that this weekend (March 8 and 9) is very busy all over Fukushima to commemorate the third anniversary of the triple disaster. Many events are taking place throughout the weekend. Iwaki city was a traditionally a small town of fisheries and aquaculture but is now growing rapidly as the post-disaster hub with 25,000 evacuees (20% of all evacuees) coming to the city as part of the government's resettlement strategy from the restricted zone (the first two years after the disaster was free temporary housing).

In this post-disaster context, FVI chose to hold the exhibition at Iwaki Cultural Centre, which is located in the very heart of the city as you can see in the map below. Instead of a local church venue or a private gallery, they intentionally chose this public space in the central location for the art exhibition. How wise and strategic to have this Christian Art Exhibition in such a place to tell the Gospel, the best public good news!

Close-up view of central Iwaki

One of the main roads near the cultural centre

Old buildings which survived the earthquake

Artists know how to tell the story

Miran Rin, a self-taught painter, is a third generation Korean in Japan and she was the lead-artist who conceived the vision behind bringing the artists together for Fukushima. "I wanted to help the suffering people in Fukushima as an artist. We, artists, can bring something for social change that is unique and cannot be conveyed by words," says the young artist. Miran went to India a few years ago to apprentice under a Christian artist who was actively engaged in various social issues by bringing groups of artists together. Miran wanted to start something similar in Japan as she experienced the power of working together with fellow artists, not in isolation.

"When we work together, we artists get encouraged by one another as much we encourage the public by our works. That's what I love about this." It was the first time she tried a group workshop so it was not easy to organize a group with people from difference places with busy, demanding life.

The quiet exhibition hall in the morning started slowly, getting busier in the afternoon. When Midori and I went out for lunch we noticed a big crowd in the lobby because there were a few other events taking place at the Cultural Centre to commemorate the third anniversary of the disaster. One of them was the city-wide Anti-Nuclear Protest.

Anti-Nuclear Protest Meeting Poster

After their meeting in the Cultural Centre in the morning, the protesters gathered in the lobby to start their street demonstration in the afternoon. Three policemen came to speak with the leaders as they knew how loud the voices of the protests can be.

I think the Art Exhibition this weekend was a powerful action to spread the message of hope and restoration in Fukushima. Definitely it carries a louder voice than that of the protest because the good news of Jesus Christ is good for Fukushima and even for the protesters.