SHIMPEI TAKEDA’s series Trace documents radiation in the soils via sites he picked in Japan. He rigged up a unique method to expose photographic paper to the soils radiation content. Like some sort of shaman/scientist he makes the invisible visible and records all his methods in this haunting project of Japan’s contamination and loss.
“Hardly anyone outside of Japan had heard the name “Fukushima” until last year, now it’s known around the world disgracefully. The nuclear fallout covered precious land where ancestors passed away. As the reading on the radiation meter climbed uncomfortably, it was such an odd and terrifying experience to collect soil samples as I felt like gathering somebody’s ashes.”
