The mural depicts a dystopian Tokyo hosting the 2020 Olympics

A recent show traces the creative legacies of an artist and an architect who helped shape Japan’s futurist aspirations

An image of the sole survivor tree after the 2011 tsunami in Japan 

Various venues, Fukushima & Watari Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

The most embarrassing moment in Peter Carey’s memoir Wrong About Japan (2005) has to be when he naively queries a master sword maker about the ethics of conferring sublime artistry in the crafting of an instrument of death. Carey mangles it in great fashion, though I’m certain many readers would feel he struck a bold intervention into Japan’s supposed disregard of post-war ethics. I had forgotten about Wrong About Japan until the release of Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises (2013).

After the tsunami: the role of disaster in Japan’s artistic psyche