Ai Iwane has been continuously photographing the cherry blossoms in Fukushima since 2012. The cherry trees in Fukushima attracted thousands of tourists every spring, but since the 311 earthquake-related nuclear power plant accident, it had always been only Iwane herself under the cherry blossoms in the radioactive evacuation zone.
In 2020, however, the new coronavirus pandemic created the same view across entire Japan. In April 2020, she was called for an assignment in Kitakami, Iwate prefecture (north of Fukushima). In Tenshochi park, Iwane encountered a two-kilometer (appx 1-1/4 miles) long tunnel of cherry blossoms in full bloom, with no one under them. This view inspired her to travel northward to see more cherry blossoms, and her secret journey began.
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Since 2006, Iwane has focused on the Japanese community’s culture in Hawaii, and she settled her second base in Miharu, Fukushima, in 2013. She continuously examined the relevance between Hawaii and Fukushima from the aspect of immigration and put her research into her earlier work “KIPUKA” in 2018, which earned widespread acclaim and won the renowned Prix Pictet Japan Award (2022) and the Kimura Ihei Photography Award (2019).