★【Part III】 A Venice Biennale Award-Winning Exhibition Born from Large-Scale Disasters and War In the Rubble and on the Battlefield, People Seek Flowers!
What Do People Seek in the Rubble and on the Battlefield?
If I were placed in the same situation, rather than creating an expression as a protest against the government or administration, I think I would create “something beautiful,” as the Japanese painter Hiroshi Senju（千住博） presented after the disaster.
Hiroshi Senju（千住博）looked back on the period following 3/11 by saying, “Everyone in Japan had been hurt. Artists, too, were depressed, thinking, ‘Perhaps we are powerless,’” and he has said that the series of cliffs and waterfalls emerged from that shock.
In supporting reconstruction in disaster-stricken areas, there were also initiatives centered on Mount Fuji, giant trees, springs, and deer, including a project in which designs for “flowers” were solicited from throughout Japan for a work depicting a giant tree. Source.
Even in response to the ongoing tragedy in Gaza, I cannot adopt as my own method the approach of directly depicting the brutality of the scene in order to protest against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the United States.
It is unbearable to be confronted every day, in such a straightforward manner, with the reality that “human nature can be so cruel and ugly. Of course, compared with all other animals, human beings are a hundred million times more foolish and evil.”
That is precisely because there is “nothing beautiful.”
I have a work titled “At Times, Billionaires Long for War,” but it took me nearly three years to paint it.
This is because I did not want to look at the weapons and scenes of combat that I was depicting, and every time I faced the canvas, I would turn my eyes away in less than thirty seconds.
Stopping the Mind through “Flowers” and Zen Is the Most Effective Form of Resistance
For example, if a Japanese ikebana arrangement, a “flower,” were placed on a table and presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who continue to lay out the logic of killing and self-preservation, they would probably destroy it instantly with their hands in front of the cameras and then continue talking.
Those in power who repeatedly engage in destruction and killing would brush it aside with their hands, saying, “What is this supposed to be?” and continue speaking breathlessly about politics and self-preservation.
As I wrote earlier, rather than creating works protesting against Israel and the United States, or objecting to the damage suffered by people and to the actions and policies of governments and prefectural administrations, I think I would create “something beautiful,” just as the disaster victims told Hiroshi Senju（千住博）.
For example, paintings or installations based on creative ikebana arrangements.
As I wrote earlier, I cannot bear to directly depict Gaza and protest against Netanyahu, Israel, and the United States. That is simply not my way.
How ugly can disasters and human beings be? I do not want to look at that every day and tell myself that this is simply human nature.
When disaster victims say, “I want to see something beautiful” or “I want to see beautiful works of art,” this is precisely what they mean.
In the midst of battlefields and ruins, mountains of rubble, and scenes writhing with suffering and despair, what people want to see is a “flower.”
Is it not true resistance to show the world Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Bezalel Smotrich looking at that “flower,” brushing it aside with their hands as if to say, “What is this supposed to be?” and then endlessly spitting words about ways to preserve their political power and prolong their own survival?
Their minds never come to a halt. Their thoughts remain endlessly occupied with their own survival, struggles for power, and desires for money and praise, as they converse without a moment's rest in Hebrew, an artificial language created by scholars in the postwar era. I believe that the very “lack of education” of this artificial group is what should bring them profound shame before the world.
Of a group with a history of only ninety years, without a long literary or cultural history outside the Bible, and whose origins are ambiguous.
Afterward ①: What Happened to “Home-for-All” in Rikuzentakata?
While the temporary housing remained, the two-story building equipped with a kitchen was used by local residents as a meeting place and a place of comfort.
In 2016, it was dismantled to make way for the “land elevation project,” one of the major reconstruction projects. Through the very reconstruction project intended to restore the disaster-stricken area, “Home-for-All” disappeared for a time.
However, its components, including columns made of Kesennuma cedar, were not discarded but preserved.
Then, in 2022, it was rebuilt near Rikuzentakata Station in the city center, led by architect Akihisa Hirata（平田晃久）. Next to it, a prepared-food takeaway shop called “Wa-Shou-Rin（和笑輪）” was newly established, and the building began a new life as a place with an eat-in space, a rest area, and a site for passing on memories of the earthquake and tsunami. The rebuilding costs were supported by the city's relocation compensation and donations including one from Hidetoshi Nakata（中田英寿）.
However, because metal flooring materials could not be procured for the observation tower, which is more than ten meters high, and its balcony, approximately two million yen in donations was solicited, and the building was completed “with the floors temporarily left unfinished.” Ultimately, the preservation of this “building that attracted worldwide attention” depends on the hands and donations of local residents.
Afterward ②: The Idea of “Home-for-All” Spread to Kumamoto
Kumamoto Prefecture incorporated the concept of “Home-for-All” from the Great East Japan Earthquake as part of the Kumamoto Artpolis project.
Then, following the Kumamoto Earthquake in 2016, all 84 dayrooms and community centers in the 110 temporary housing complexes, comprising 4,303 housing units, were built as wooden “Home-for-All” facilities.
For the eight facilities built in large-scale complexes containing more than 80 housing units, Toyoo Itou（伊東豊雄）himself selected the architects and proceeded with the designs through workshops with the residents.
After the temporary housing complexes were closed, these buildings were relocated and repurposed as community centers, after-school children's clubs, and other facilities, where they continue to be used today.
“Did the Award Accelerate Reconstruction?” — An Honest Assessment
Online, people sometimes say that “reconstruction progressed thanks to the award,” but the records that can be verified are somewhat more cautious.
- What can be confirmed: The practical efforts of Toyoo Itou（伊東豊雄）and others, based on the idea that “temporary housing needs a place where people can gather casually,” were institutionalized as a project by Kumamoto Prefecture and expanded to all 84 facilities. Even after the buildings were dismantled, their components were preserved and passed on, and ten years later one of them was rebuilt in the center of the city.
- What cannot be confirmed: There is no established causal evidence that winning the Golden Lion increased donations or accelerated reconstruction. None of the primary sources I examined this time — including the official blog of the operating organization, local newspapers, and Kumamoto Prefecture — contained such a statement. Kumamoto Prefecture's materials mention “the proposal by Mr. Itou,” but make no reference to the award.
In other words, rather than saying that “reconstruction progressed because the project won an award,” it is more accurate to say that the practice itself — continuing dialogue on the ground and creating buildings — became a model for the next disaster.
The award provided an opportunity to communicate that practice to the world. The real force that drove reconstruction was not Venice, but Rikuzentakata and Kumamoto.
Did the “No Landmines Song” Change the World? — Twenty-Five Years After ZERO LANDMINE: Confirmed Achievements and Effects That Cannot Be Confirmed
Introduction: Twenty-Five Years Since That Song
In my previous article, I quoted these words by Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）:
「Even if people criticize it as hypocrisy, if it makes society even a little better, isn't that a good thing? My efforts toward ecology and my activities after the earthquake have both been supported by that conviction.」
A concrete example frequently cited in connection with these words is the 2001 “Landmine Zero Campaign” and the charity song “ZERO LANDMINE（ZERO LANDMINE）.”
There is a story often told: “Thanks to this event, opposition to landmines and awareness of the danger they pose increased around the world, donations to mine-clearance activities increased, and even the attitudes of national leaders and militaries changed.”
Twenty-five years later, is this really true? Let us distinguish between achievements that remain in the historical record and effects for which no evidence remains.
What Was ZERO LANDMINE?
First, let us lay out the outline within the range that can be confirmed.
- Trigger:The “Landmine Zero Campaign” was conducted as a project commemorating the 50th anniversary of TBS.
The organizing body was the “Landmine Zero Campaign Committee,” whose members included TBS, Warner Music Japan, NION, and the NGO Association for Aid and Relief, Japan (AAR Japan).
- Program: On April 30, 2001, TBS broadcast the special program “Landmine ZERO: The First Prayer of the 21st Century（地雷ZERO 21世紀最初の祈り）” live across the TBS network (28 JNN-affiliated stations).
- Song: At the initiative of Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, the charity unit “N.M.L. (NO MORE LANDMINE)” was formed, and the single “ZERO LANDMINE” was released on April 25, 2001. Musicians from Japan and abroad participated, and in Mozambique, a mine-clearance headquarters was temporarily converted into a studio for the recording.
- Hit: The single debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weekly singles chart dated May 14, 2001, and remained No. 1 for two consecutive weeks. It ranked No. 28 for the year.
- Flow of funds: All proceeds from CD sales were donated and used to finance mine clearance. Warner Music Japan presented the Landmine Zero Campaign Committee with a donation certificate for “approximately 100 million yen confirmed to date.”
The donations were entrusted through AAR to the British specialist mine-clearance organizations The HALO Trust and MAG, and were used for mine-clearance operations in Cambodia, Angola, Georgia, and Mozambique.
The program was broadcast, the song reached No. 1 on Oricon, all proceeds were donated, and the money was used for mine clearance in four countries — all of these points are facts confirmed by records.
Now let us move on to the questions.
Verification ①: Did Opposition to Landmines and Awareness of the Danger Increase?
There is no doubt that in 2001 the landmine issue became familiar to people in Japan on an unusually large scale.
The fact that a charity song debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon chart also means that the landmine issue occupied the top of Japan's music charts for several weeks.
I believe there is no doubt that there was a moment when public awareness in Japan was collectively brought into the spotlight.
However, the difficult question comes next.
In my research this time, I could not verify the state of “increased awareness” retrospectively through numerical data. Within the scope of what I was able to confirm, I found neither comparative data from awareness surveys at the time nor research linking the campaign to changes in public awareness.
Furthermore, the current situation in the world is severe.
According to the latest report by the mine and explosive-weapons monitoring organization, Landmine Monitor 2025, 6,279 people were killed or injured by landmines and explosive remnants of war during 2024, and 52 countries and territories remain affected. The countries with the largest numbers of casualties were Myanmar (2,029), Syria (1,015), Afghanistan (624), Ukraine (293), and Yemen (247).
Countries currently using antipersonnel mines include Myanmar, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, which are not parties to the treaty.
In other words, something that the world supposedly promised twenty-five years ago to reduce is once again spreading.
“Opposition and awareness” do not simply remain once they have risen; unless they are maintained across generations, they do not persist automatically. That is the reality of the 2020s.
Verification ②: Did Awareness of and Donations for Mine Clearance Increase?
This is the area in which the clearest results can be seen.
- The donations were real: All proceeds from CD sales, together with donations received, were actually used for mine clearance in four countries.
- An example of the results: In Mozambique, one of the areas where campaign funds were used, “zero landmines” was achieved in September 2015. A country that had once been one of the world's most heavily mined countries became free of landmines.
- The donation mechanism continued for approximately 19 years: Financial reports of the Landmine Zero Campaign Committee remain available from April 2001 through March 2020. In other words, the campaign did not end as a one-off event; its donation mechanism continued to function for nearly twenty years.
On the other hand, there is a point that must honestly be stated. We did not find comparative data showing that “donations increased compared with before the campaign.” What can be confirmed is that approximately 100 million yen in donations was generated from zero and that those donations were converted into mine-clearance operations on the ground. Beyond that, there is insufficient data to speak of an “increase.”
It should also be noted that the frequently cited figures for mine-clearance achievements in Mozambique — more than 1,600 local staff employed by The HALO Trust, more than 17 million square meters of land made safe, and 171,000 mines removed — represent the organization's achievements across Mozambique as a whole, not achievements accomplished solely through donations from the Landmine Zero Campaign.
The campaign's funds were one supporting element within this larger effort.
Verification ③: Did the Attitudes of National Leaders and Militaries Change?
There is an easily overlooked “trap of time” here.
The international treaty banning landmines, the “Mine Ban Treaty (Ottawa Treaty),” was opened for signature in December 1997 and entered into force on March 1, 1999, after ratification by 40 countries. Japan signed it on December 3, 1997, and ratified it on September 30, 1998.
In other words, both the treaty and its ratification predated ZERO LANDMINE.
The claim that “this campaign moved countries and led to the creation of the treaty” therefore cannot stand chronologically.
The role played by the campaign was in “dissemination and funding” after the treaty had already been established. This distinction is important.
But did attitudes after the treaty move in the right direction? Here too, there is a clear headwind.
Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and changes in the security environment, five European countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Finland — decided in 2025 to withdraw from the Ottawa Treaty one after another (Estonia and others announced their withdrawal on March 18, while Finland announced preparations for withdrawal on April 1). The treaty has 165 states parties, but the framework itself is now under strain.
The events in Europe in 2025 suggest that the greatest force capable of changing the attitudes of leaders and militaries is not beautiful music or public awareness campaigns, but the threat posed by a neighboring country. I found no evidence that the campaign changed national leaders.
Even when attitudes do change, they can change in a negative direction in an instant.
Conclusion: What the “Device” Can and Cannot Leave Behind
On this website, I define art as follows.
「Art is an expression of what one wants to say, and a device for generating dialogue and debate.」
We have examined the power of this “device” through two examples.
They are the architectural project “Home-for-All（みんなの家）” (Toyoo Itou（伊東豊雄）and others, Golden Lion at the 2012 Venice Biennale) and the musical project “ZERO LANDMINE” (produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, 2001).
First, let us consider what the device failed to leave behind.
There is no record showing that the “award” that brought “Home-for-All” to the world's attention directly accelerated reconstruction in the disaster-stricken areas.
ZERO LANDMINE reached No. 1 on the Oricon chart and brought the landmine issue to the ears of people throughout Japan for several weeks.
However, it was impossible to verify numerically whether people became “more enlightened.”
Twenty-five years later, landmine casualties are once again increasing, and European countries are withdrawing from the treaty. Awareness is not automatically saved. What moves leaders and militaries is not beautiful music or public opinion, but the threat posed by neighboring countries.
So, what can the device leave behind?
Architecture left behind a “place.”
The dismantled “Home-for-All” was preserved as components, including columns made from Kesennuma cedar, rebuilt in the city center ten years later, and its concept was reproduced in all 84 temporary-housing facilities in Kumamoto following the Kumamoto Earthquake.
Koki Tanaka's（田中功起）2013 exhibition also inherited the same question of “collaboration” from the perspective of art by borrowing materials from the venue used the previous year.
Music left behind “actual money and a donation mechanism.” A system in which all CD proceeds were donated, actual funds amounting to approximately 100 million yen, and a donation mechanism that continued for approximately nineteen years. Then, in 2015, there was a verifiable milestone: landmines reached “zero” in Mozambique.
In other words, we can summarize it this way.
A device may or may not have been able to enlighten or improve people's awareness.
What a device can preserve is place, form, and actual funds — as well as a mechanism for passing them on to the next generation.
The land lost in an earthquake cannot be returned. How can a “place for dialogue” that has been created once be preserved as a memory and passed on to the next disaster? That was the answer found over the past ten years.
“Even if it is hypocrisy, if it makes society even a little better” — the result of making a song with that conviction was that the number of landmines decreased across four countries, and one country achieved zero. A device that generates dialogue leaves behind something tangible in place of awareness that inevitably fades.
That is what these two stories have taught us.
I repeat: art is not simply “communication” as Hiroshi Senju（千住博）defined it.
The kinds of works discussed here are expressions of intent aimed at improving the relief of disaster victims and victims of violence, increasing our understanding of the psychological state of disaster victims and the tragic state of consciousness among perpetrators of war, and functioning as a “device for promoting and generating communication,” are they not?
Is Art Powerless to Move Politics and Society?
The Proposition That “Music Cannot Change the World”
「Music cannot change the world, you know. Songs follow the times, but the times do not follow songs.”
These words spoken by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）on NHK-FM in 2022 offer a sharp perspective on the limits of art. He went on to explain his own principle that music should remain music and that he did not want to turn it into a tool for moving society as propaganda.
In fact, he says that even the charitable activities he actually carries out are something he continues quietly, because they are “not something to tell other people about.” Source.
Immediately after a major disaster, or in the face of a threat to life or intense physical pain, music and painting cannot directly satisfy hunger or heal wounds. In that sense, art is indeed powerless.
There is an artist who has understood this “powerlessness” more painfully than anyone. The contemporary artist Ai Weiwei, who has produced political works for many years and has been detained by authorities, has stated clearly:
「Artists cannot stop wars. (Omitted.) In that sense, art may be said to be powerless.」Source
However, if art were truly such a weak and powerless existence, a major contradiction would arise.
Why, then, have rulers throughout history feared and persecuted artists to such an extent?
Why Do Those in Power Fear Art? — The “Influence” Demonstrated by History
Looking back at history, it is clear that art possesses enormous “power” to change human consciousness and behavior.
- John Lennon and the FBI: John Lennon, who sang about love and peace and became a symbol of the anti-war movement, was persistently monitored and followed by the Nixon administration and the FBI, and was even subjected to deportation proceedings by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Source.
And ultimately, he was killed by a gunshot. If his songs had been merely “powerless,” there would have been no need for the state authorities to establish a surveillance network.
- Hitler's “Degenerate Art Exhibition”: Nazi Germany persecuted avant-garde artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Max Ernst by labeling their art “degenerate,” and in 1937 held a public exhibition in Munich to expose and denounce such works. Source.
Kandinsky was forced to emigrate to France, while Klee emigrated to Switzerland. Source.
Dictators understood that modern art, by generating diverse values, could threaten totalitarianism. - Dictatorships That Suppressed Words and Expression: The former Soviet Union stripped Nobel Prize-winning writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who exposed the realities of the Gulag, of his citizenship in 1974 and expelled him to West Germany. Source.
The Chinese Communist Party also imprisoned Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who advocated democratization, and he died in prison in 2017 without being released. Source.
- Detention of Ai Weiwei: Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei independently investigated and documented victims of school buildings that collapsed in the Sichuan Earthquake because of poor construction, sometimes referred to as “tofu-dreg construction,” and developed a critique of the political system through art. Source.
As a result, he was arrested in 2011 on suspicion of tax evasion and detained for 81 days, and later was forced to move his base outside the country. Source.
These facts demonstrate that artists and other expressive figures can possess enough influence to shake systems of power as “educators” or “journalists” who awaken the consciousness of the public.
We should pay attention to the paradox that Ai Weiwei himself, who called art “powerless,” was in fact regarded as especially dangerous by the state precisely because of his influence.
As producers of “devices” that change consciousness, artists must accurately recognize the influence they exert on society rather than being swept along by the discourse that “art is powerless.”
Jung's View of the Artist as an “Educator”
The psychologist Carl Gustav Jung left profound insights into the relationship between artists and society.
In Jung's writings on literature and art, the artist is described as someone who “searches from within the unconscious for the archetype best suited to compensate for the biases and one-sidedness of the spirit of the age.” Source.
Based on Jung's perspective in this passage, the artist is “someone who draws out, in the form of a work, what that era or society is unconsciously seeking at its deepest level.”
Jung said that “the artist is the only person who can express and present the truth of things, their underlying reality, to the public without angering politicians or those in power,” and argued that when existing politics and power become rigid and society loses its psychological balance, the artist has the important responsibility of expressing truth and enlightening humanity as an “educator.”
The mission of the artist is education, and the burden carried by the artist is a heavy one!
At times, this can become a dangerous act that provokes the fury of those in power — the history of persecution mentioned above is evidence of this.
Even so, it is artists, above all others, who can present the essence of humanity and the depths of an era as “universal expression” transcending direct political confrontation.
Conclusion
Art may be powerless in the sense that it does not have the immediate effectiveness of medicine that physically heals wounds.
However, as “spiritual infrastructure” that plants seeds in the depths of people's consciousness, shakes existing systems, and points toward the direction in which society should move, there may be nothing more powerful.
The charity song for mine clearance twenty-five years ago and the exhibition at the Venice Biennale after the earthquake can both certainly be situated within that vast historical context.
★【PartⅠ】 A Venice Biennale Award-Winning Exhibition Born from Large-Scale Disasters and War and the Controversy They Generated! — The “Trauma Olympics” and the Reality of International Art Exhibitions! 【See this page】
★【Part II】A Venice Biennale Award-Winning Exhibition Born from a Major Disaster and War and Becoming a Topic of Discussion! What Happened to “Home-for-All” Afterwards? — What Toyo Ito and Koki Tanaka Exhibited, and Their Impact on Disaster-Affected Areas!【See this page】
★[Part IV] A Venice Biennale Award-Winning Exhibition Born from Large-Scale Disasters and War What Is Buddhist Enlightenment? — Exhibitions That Were Created from Large-Scale Disasters and War and Became the Focus of Attention at the Venice Biennale!【See this page】
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