Damemoto (Nothing to Lose), 2012

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Damemoto (Nothing to Lose), 2012
Reclaimed wood, weeds, lights, water bowl, hardware

Exhibited in Sons and Daughters of the Sun and Star II, Hiroshima City University, Hiroshima, Japan, 2012

The March 11, 2011, Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami sent millions of tons of debris drifting across the Pacific Ocean, and much of it washed up on the West Coast of the United States and Canada. In June 2012, a 66-foot concrete and metal dock from Misawa, Japan, came ashore at Agate Beach, Oregon.

Brown made Damemoto in Hiroshima that year, as part of Sons and Daughters of the Sun and Star, an exchange program between Texas Christian University and Hiroshima City University. The long, low pier was assembled from debris from the 2011 earthquake, with clumps of weeds growing up through its planks and strands of blinking string lights running its length. It was meant as a literal bridge and dock between the two countries, a path for help to travel during a huge tragedy. Writing in the exhibition catalog, Kenji Kajiya described the lights as honoring the dock’s “mighty voyage across the sea.”

The bilingual exhibition catalog, with essays by Lucia Simek and Kenji Kajiya, is available as a PDF: Sons and Daughters of the Sun and Star catalog (PDF, 3.4 MB). See also Transpacific, made for the Fort Worth half of the exchange.

Damemoto (Nothing to Lose), 2012 — artwork by artist Bradly Brown. End of a wooden pier with a ladder, edged in blinking blue string lights
Damemoto (Nothing to Lose), 2012 — artwork by artist Bradly Brown. Long view of the wooden pier running through a dark corrugated-metal room, lit with string lights
Damemoto (Nothing to Lose), 2012 — artwork by artist Bradly Brown. Wooden pier curving through the dark, outlined in string lights, with weeds growing from it
Damemoto (Nothing to Lose), 2012 — artwork by artist Bradly Brown. Clump of weeds growing from the planks of the wooden pier, lit from below
Damemoto (Nothing to Lose), 2012 — artwork by artist Bradly Brown. Low wooden pier stretching across the gallery floor in Hiroshima, edged with string lights