Lieko Shiga on Kitakama village and the 2011 tsunami

Lieko Shiga and Rasen Kaigan

Lieko Shiga explains that she came to Kitakama not simply to photograph the place, but because she felt drawn to it and wanted to live within its environment. During her first year there, she worked as the village photographer, documenting local activities, festivals, and ceremonies.

A turning point came when an elderly woman asked Shiga to make a photograph for her funeral. The request led Shiga to consider what photography might reveal beyond what the eye can see: the community’s unseen spirit, history, and bonds. She began Rasen Kaigan (Spiral Shore), a series in which each photograph carries stories of Kitakama and its residents.

Land, Memory, and the Tsunami

Shiga describes learning about the labor involved in transforming the land from pine forest into homes, fields, and kilns. After trying to dig up a pine stump herself, she gained a sense of the effort involved and of the people who had reclaimed the land.

The series also records Kitakama before the March 11, 2011, tsunami. Shiga recalls narrowly avoiding the wave, which the subtitles describe as about 12 meters high. It devastated the village: of roughly 370 residents, about 54 died. Shiga points out the remains of her former studio and the house of a community-center director, who kept it standing so people would remember that a home had been there.

A Spiral Across Generations

For Shiga, Spiral Shore connects past, present, and future. Its spiral suggests DNA and an ongoing link between people who lived long ago, those living now, and generations yet to come—a world extending beyond everyday human experience.

Creator and Contributors

• Lieko Shiga — Photographer and creator of Rasen Kaigan.
• Kitakama residents — Their lives, memories, and stories inform the series, including those of the elderly woman who requested a funeral photograph, people connected to the history of reclaiming the land, and the community-center director whose house Shiga discusses.