Dans l’œil du désastre: Michaël Ferrier’s choral, evolutive and multimedia response to Fukushima

This essay examines the hybrid, multi- and inter-medial strategy that Michaël Ferrier devised in response to the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, by engaging in creative, critical and digital production across different genres and art forms (fiction and non-fiction writing, films, scholarly research, journalism, art criticism and curation). The article focuses first on Ferrier’s use of his website www.tokyo-time-table.com as a ‘network of solidarity’ (Nicola Liscutin), i.e. an open and adaptable platform allowing him to flexibly respond to the evolving situation in Fukushima since March 2011, to relate it to other catastrophes and their representations in Japan and beyond, and to accumulate and if needs be update and remediate archival material and creative works on the 3.11 triple disaster. It discusses then the essential collaborative dimension of Ferrier’s work since 2011 in the form of workshops, interviews and collective publications involving scholars, scientists and other writers and artists such as Chim↑Pom, especially in the multi-author volume Dans l’œil du désastre: créer avec Fukushima (2021).