Activity Report of the Center for Remembering 3.11

May 18, 2017

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We are pleased to announce the release of "The Activity Report of the Center for Remembering 3.11" (originally published in February 2015) on the web. In this report, we introduced our activities and records over the four years since the Center for Remembering 3.11 opened.

Please download the activity report of the center for remembering 3.11 (pdf / 15MB) from here.

Introduction
This book aims to convey images of the Great East Japan Earthquake perceived through recorded materials contributed to “the center for remembering 3.11,” as well as activity of archiving itself.
It features 45 themes in four sections, which are structured with elements such as things that can be read from recorded materials, experience gained from archiving activities and experience of going through the disasters from a variety of people.

Legend

Contents

About the center for remembering 3.11

Before and up to 30 Days after the Disaster

1	Everyday Scenes</strong	p.010
2	Foreshock	p.012
3	Respective 3/11	p.014
4	Confusion after the Tremor	p.016
5	To a Safer Place	p.018
6	To a Higher Place	p.020
7	Snow	p.024
8	Walking Home	p.026
9	The Starry Sky	p.028
10	The Following Morning	p.030
11	Living	p.032
12	Another Earthquake	p.036
13	Cherry Blossoms	p.038

Photographs, texts and sound-recordings as well as their making

14	Re-coding from the Same Perspective	p.042
15	Legends	p.046
16	Stone Monuments	p.048
17	Notices	p.050
18	Personal Notes	p.052
19	Drawing with Hearing	p.054
20	View with Ears	p.056
21	Voices for Reconstruction	p.058

Moving Images and Their Making

22	Everyday and Video Camera	p.062
23	Motivation for Recording	p.066
24	First Video Camera	p.068
25	Broadcasting Records	p.070
26	Putting it in Words	p.072
27	More than Words	p.074
28	Support Activities	p.076
29	Recovery Operations	p.078
30	Records of Residences	p.080
31	Records of Culture	p.082
32	Records of Meetings	p.084
33	Another Perspective	p.086
34	Thoughts Caused by Landscapes	p.088
35	Witnessing Dialogues	p.092
36	Facing Loss	p.094

Practices of Contextualizing and Utilization in Archiving Activities

37	Screenings and DVDs	p.098
38	Opportunity to Talk	p.100
39	From Data to Tool	p.102
40	Invisible Things	p.104
41	First Meal	p.106
42	Coastal Culture in Folklore	p.108
43	Opportunity for Records and Recollections	p.110
44	Studying the Disasters	p.112
45	Website	p.114

In Conclusion
In order to convey the general outline of our archiving activities ̶recorder311, this booklet introduces selected contributions and activities we practiced. They are introduced in four sections; the first section presents them in chronological order, while the second and third sections are segmented by type of recording and content. The last section is organized along working processes of archiving activity.
In the enormous scale of the Great East Japan Earthquake, what our recordings show is only a tiny fraction. Yet however small they may be, they are firsthand fragments of the disaster that each one of us have experienced, seen and heard since March 11, 2011 up to the present, as well as the achievements of their attempt to pass them down to future generations.

In response to the Great East Japan Earthquake, there have been many different “disaster archiving” activities, conducted by various groups in various places. As goal, concept and methodology differ from group to group, the meaning of the word “archiving” slightly differs in each activity.
As for recorder311, when we speak of “archiving” we mean a series of collaborative activities that consists of “recording & collecting,” “organizing & storing,” “contextualizing,” and “utilizing,” through which our recordings activities are nurtured into “tools” to pass down the achievements to the future generations, sharing them with many different people and places.
In more concrete terms about recorder311’s concept, it gathers people who agree with its goal of making the recordings public and leaving them for posterity. They are the main group of people who do “recording & collecting” as “contributors,” sharing those recordings with In Conclusionrecorder311. It in turn “organizes & stores” them to be “contextualized” and “utilized” with the contributors and citizens, nurturing them into “tools.” Furthermore, in all of those processes, essential are
interactions with supporters, donors and audience.

At the beginning, recorder311 had not imagined the current dynamic situation in which diverse people gather around the archiving activities, taking part in them in a variety of ways. However, while groping for significance of our activities, little by little we came to the
understanding that the core of a community archiving activity is to provide opportunities and systems with which recordings are returned to each person’s everyday life, for even though they are recordings of a disaster, they fundamentally are recordings of one’s life. That is how recorder311 has grown to an “archive” at it is now, being sustained by multi-layered and circulating people.
For that reason, contributors in recorder311 are essential in every phase of archiving; from the act of recording ̶ the “seed” ̶ to the act of utilization for others and future generations ̶ the “fruit.”

As last year marked the 10th anniversary of the Mid Niigata Prefecture Earthquake in 2004, and January this year marked the 20th anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, disaster archiving activities are still continuing at many places.
recorder311 aims at promoting “archiving as a cultural activity” ̶something that is everyday and open to everybody ̶ pursuing its directness and urgency with you, in diverse forms.

February 2015

activity report of the center for remembering 3.11
Published in February, 2015

Planning & Publisher	the center for remembering 3.11 (sendai mediatheque)
Supported by	Contributors, donors and supporters of the center for remembering 3.11
Collecting Photo Project conducted with	the NPO 20th Century Archive Sendai
Translation	Communa Translation Design, LLP
Design	homesickdesign
Printing & Bookbinding	ToyamaAoba Printing Inc.