Nanohana Heels - Healing Fukushima (2012)

Installation with video (color, sound), screens, and lambda print(120 x 200 cm), 0:51 min, dimensions variable.
Device: Leather, Steel, Aluminium
Object Size: 40 x 30 x 15 cm
© Sputniko!
Courtesy the artist and Scai the Bathhouse, Tokyo.

Designed in collaboration with shoe designer Masaya Kushino, "Nanohana Heels" is a pair of shoes that plant rapeseeds (Nanohana, in Japanese) into soil through the mechanical high-heels. As the wearer walks, the rapeseeds are automatically planted into her own foot steps.

Experiments by Belarusian scientists have shown that rapeseed blossoms absorb radioactive substances such as Caesium-137 and Strontium-90 from soil. These seeds can also be turned into biodiesel, which can be used as a source of clean energy. This discovery led to the planting of rapeseeds in over 50,000 hectares of Chernobyl-affected land by the Ukraine and Belarus governments in the 2000s, in a move to revive the area's agriculture industry which had been wiped out by the 1986 nuclear accident.

Fukushima, Japan, has also suffered a devastating nuclear power plant accident in March 2011, which is still hugely affecting the lives of many people today. There are many discussions happening about how to clean and revive the affected land - and one of the solutions discussed was the planting of Nanohana in Fukushima. There have also been anti-nuclear demonstrations in Japan named the "Nanohana Parade" in which participants marched holding Rapeflowers in their hands.

Planting Nanohana might not be the only or the most efficient solution for solving Fukushima's complex problems after the disaster. However it's one of many different pathways people could take, and the young generation are definitely trying to walk on forward.

Selected Exhibitions:

"Anonymous Life", NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, Japan. 2013
"Light of Silence", Aomori Museum of Art, Aomori, Japan. 2012
"Hyper Archipelago", Gyre Omotesando, Tokyo, Japan. 2012

Selected Press:

GINZA, January 2013 Issue "Nanohana Heels", January 2013
Healing Fukushima with Heels, NBC News USA, July 2012
1TV News Russia, July 2012
V1CN News China, July 2012
The Economist - Art after Fukushima (The artist as activist), March 16th 2012
Japan Agriculture News (Nihon Nogyo Shimbun), March 18th 2012

Credits:

courtesy of SCAI THE BATHHOUSE
Concept/Direction/Production: Sputniko!
Shoe Design: Masaya Kushino
Video: Visitor Studio
Photography: Naoki Ishizaka
Styling: Takafumi Kawasaki
Make Up: Koji Kasai
Product Photography: Takuya Shima
Shoe Making: Perlero
Model Making: KIMURA / Naoki Kawamoto
Metalwork: Yuki Sumiya
Special thank you to all the Wonderful people I met and gave me advice in Iitate Village and Minami-Soma City, Fukushima. Especially Mr. Tetsuo Ohashi.