shashasha

"At the beginning of 2011, I was working on editing photos taken in Tohoku, the north east region in Japan, to make it into a book.

Sign of winter is reminiscent of the Tohoku, where I grew up. Coupled with winter cold, my heart twinges and gravitates towards the snowy hometown in the North when I sense it.

Started in the Tohoku, I went on a journey for photographing, which, in the end, made me go over to Russia to Trace my family's old blood.

As the journey went on, I've come to think that hometown is perhaps about memories, memories of people and the land, which fragments had inherited to us through ages slowly, silently.

Then the Earthquake hit the Tohoku region. I was brought back to my home town again.

Nature is menacing. The overwhelmingness reminded me of how powerless we are in front of it.

Feeling powerlessness before the devastating scenery, yet, I felt my heart tightened upseeing the nature, the sea became calm and flowers are about to bloom again and we accept and appreciate all of these.

• March 2013 Haruka Fujita, excerpt from soundless river