“Low Tide” – this title sounds harmless and does not reveal anything about the catastrophe that befell Japan as a result of the earthquake and the tsunami on 11 March 2011. Six months later, the French photographer Denis Rouvre (b. 1967), who trained at the renowned École Louis Lumière, travelled the region to personally understand what had happened and to speak with those affected: the people who lost everything – their relatives, their homes, their neighbours, their family photographs and personal belongings, their dreams and life goals. In expressive portraits Rouvre restores their dignity, while at the same time taking into account the “new” environment: destroyed houses, forbidding places, and ploughed-up landscapes. “Black is the colour of the tsunami,” says one of those affected: young and old people struggling to resume their lives.
The photo series, which was published in The New York Times Magazine and for which Rouvre was awarded a third prize in the 2012 World Press Photo Contest, will be shown for the first time in Germany. Other awards the Paris-based photographer has received include second prizes in the 2010 and 2013 World Press Photo Contests as well as a second prize in the 2011 Sony World Photography Awards.
The lavishly illustrated book titled “Denis Rouvre. Low Tide – Le Japon du chaos” can be purchased at the museum shop or in bookstores.
