On the 10th anniversary of the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster the book Don't Follow the Wind co-edited by, Jason Waite, DPhil in Contemporary Art Theory & History, was released. Waite is part of the eponymous collective of artists and curators working with residents displaced by the disaster that has commissioned and continued to care for twelve new artworks by contemporary artists such as Meiro Koizumi, Ai Weiwei, and Trevor Paglen, installed in the former homes of the residents inside the closed radioactive zone surrounding the power station. The project takes the form of an art exhibition which is “open” but inaccessible as the zone is closed to the public. The artworks function as a mnemonic of the durational disaster. The unique challenges of maintaining an exhibition inside an uninhabited radioactive area have led to the collective and former residents to develop new modes of understanding how art can confront a crisis and work to build translocal durational relations.

 

 

The book functions as a placeholder for the ongoing exhibition with contributions by all of the artists Ai Weiwei, Chim↑Pom, Nikolaus Hirsch & Jorge Otero-Pailos, Meiro Koizumi, Eva & Franco Mattes, Grand Guignol Mirai, Aiko Miyanaga, Ahmet Öğüt, Trevor Paglen, Taryn Simon, Nobuaki Takekawa, and Kota Takeuchi. The volume includes new texts by feminist theorist Silvia Federici, art historians Noi Sawaragi and Sven Lütticken, and political philosopher Jodi Dean that address the question: What can art do in a continuing catastrophe when destruction and contamination have made living impossible?

 

 

More info on the book at www.sternberg-press.com/product/dont-follow-the-wind/