Join us at Side to meet Dean Chapman and discuss his current exhibition (refreshments and good conversation!).
Three months after the earthquake and tsunami catastrophe that hit Japan in March 2011, Dean Chapman traveled down the northeast coast of Honshu, Japan’s main island, photographing devastated communities that he had previously documented in the summer of 1999. This journey was repeated in the autumn of 2011. Then in the autumn of 2012, eighteen months after the disaster, Dean traveled north through the devastated region, again documenting the widespread damage and loss, as well as the slow methodical clean up, and the beginnings of the reconstruction of infrastructure, communities and businesses. His exhibition Tsunami: Archaeology of a Disaster at Side seeks to examine the representation of catastrophe and loss, and perceptions of ‘the Japanese’ and their unique cultural heritage.
Dean is an award-winning photographer who has worked extensively in Asia for over twenty years, and is the winner of the 1998 European Publishers’ Award for Photography for his documentation of the Karenni insurgency in Burma. Based in Newcastle and represented by Panos Pictures Agency in London, his photographs have been exhibited internationally and widely published. He has photographed in Japan periodically since 1993.