Name: Shozo ENDO

Age: 68

(Age 55 in March 2011)

Birthplace: Katsurao Village

Home address: Koriyama City

Occupation: Storyteller

‘The disaster gave me strength to change myself’

① The night of March 11^th I found an empty plot of land to park my car and we spent the night there. Fortunately, my wife had filled up the car the day before, which was a big relief. Nonetheless, we couldn’t waste fuel, so we didn’t have it on all the time. We just kept heating it up, and turning it off again when it was warm enough.

② In Katsurao, where we evacuated to, we could use electricity and watch TV. That’s where we were first confronted with the severity of the situation. Up until that point, we really didn’t know anything, so it was the first time that we thought “We might not be able to go home anymore.”

③ At the Big Palette Fukushima evacuation shelter, I spent the time with my wife in an area of around 3㎡. People could see us, and there was no privacy. It was really agonizing and frustrating, so in order to find some kind of cover I made a makeshift partition out of cardboard.

④ Casually thinking it might be nice to have a picture on it, I drew something. That seemed to make people happy. It wasn’t as if I was particularly good at drawing, but the desire for privacy became the start of cardboard box art.

⑤ Adding color to the brown cardboard boxes was like a flower coming into bloom. People started wondering what I’d make next, or asking me to draw something for them. And so, people around us started to cheer up bit by bit.

⑥ Not knowing where anything was, I ended up not bringing anything with me. Going into the messed-up house together with my wife, we thought: “What difference is it going to make for us to be here? We’re not taking anything with us anyway,” and got back on the bus, and waited there for two hours.

⑦ I didn’t do anything I was glad to have done afterward. I have more regrets, such as believing too much in the safety myth. “There’s no such thing as certainty. You have to live your life in the realization that you never know what can happen and when,” is what I tell the people around me.

CAPTION

・Cardboard box art made for a friend at the evacuation shelter who wanted to eat watermelon.

・A cardboard box art rendering of the temporary housing where Endo stayed for 4 years and 3 months. It depicts the four seasons that kept passing by.

・This piece of cardboard box art shows Endo’s wedding anniversary that took place at the temporary housing. For Endo, who never managed to have a wedding, this is one of their few good memories.

・A yosakoi dance performance at the Yonomori cherry blossom festival in Tomioka Town, and cardboard box-art imagining the feelings of the row of cherry trees that nobody returned to. The beautiful falling of the cherry blossom petals is expressed very finely.

・This piece of cardboard box art depicts the four seasons in Endo’s wife’s hometown of Katsurao Village. It was made with the vegetables that his mother-in-law used to grow in mind.

・A piece of cardboard box art of the Big Palette Fukushima-turned evacuation-shelter, made secretly after lights-out. Endo made them in full concentration, knowing that nobody could spy on them.

・A lot of flowers that Endo used to decorate the temporary housing in order to cheer himself up, saying “Don’t give up! Keep your spirits up!” He decided to plant a lot of them, to bring happiness to the many people who visited the temporary housing.

・A collage of the cardboard box art Endo made at the Big Palette Fukushima evacuation shelter. It was so popular that many people asked if they could get one, and he ended up giving them all away.