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There are places in the world that we must not forget. And yet we have forgotten those places.
The Ogasawara Islands lie in the Pacific Ocean approximately 1000 kilometers south of Tokyo. On Chichijima one of the islands a mountain was gouged out and coated with concrete that hardened to form a bunker. There are three openings two of which are connected by tunnels. This place was never to be known that had been closed off for many years—it was a place that should not be known. A place that was forcibly meant to be forgotten by both time and history.

Photographer Shinichiro Nagasawa spent 13 years beginning in 2008 making numerous trips to the Ogasawara Islands. The one-way trip by boat from Tokyo takes 24 hours over rough seas to reach the islands. He photographed the way of life of the island’s indigenous Bonin Islanders their portraits and the island’s nature and landscapes. These were later published in the photobook The Bonin Islanders. He included old photographs throughout the photobook and interspersed scenery from the past with scenes of everyday life in the present. Turning the pages of the photobook we are drawn in by the tranquil natural landscapes of the island both beautiful and rugged cut from the fabric of time. The collection of photographs is also a record of materials gathered periodically by a cultural anthropologist during fieldwork as well as a story filled with literary emotion. However there are unpublished photos that were not included in that photobook. These are compiled in this collection Mary Had a Little Lamb.

At the beginning of the book Nagasawa states “A nuclear warhead named Mary’s Lamb was deployed on Chichijima under U.S. military occupation.” Mary Had a Little Lamb is an American nursery rhyme written in the 19th century. It’s a story about a littlegirl named Mary who has a pet lamb that is very attached to her. One day her brother encourages Mary to bring the lamb to school. The sudden appearance of the lamb at school causes a commotion among the students. The students panic because Mary broke the rules by bringing the lamb to school where animals are not usually allowed. The nursery rhyme includes a line about the students wondering “Why does the lamb love Mary so much?” Something that was wasn’t supposed be there was there. The name almost seems to be metaphorically intended.
While photographing the landscapes and battle sites on Chichijima Nagasawa ventured inside areas containing mysterious wreckage. Deep in the mountains he entered the concrete remnants of a bunker built by the Japanese Army in the early Showa period and realized later that this was once a military warehouse. Known as the Imperial Fortress Island Explosives Storehouse it had been a military secret of the Japanese Army. After World War II it was occupied by the United States.

During the Cold War in the mid-1950s President Eisenhower approved the extensive deployment of nuclear weapons to the Pacific Ocean. Twice a year from February 1956 to December 1965 the US Armed Forces’ nuclear submarine Polaris stopped at the quay on Chichijima. Massive iron cylinders were hoisted by cranes and brought into the bunker. (*1) The top-secret document of the US Department of Defense Atomic Weapons Maintenance Report contains material indicating the locations of top-secret weapons of the US military that were stored around the world during the Cold War. Before the document was declassified the list indicating the storage locations was blacked out. The exact locations of 25 of the 27 locations were identified but the two places with the notations ‘C’ and ‘I’ remained a mystery. Initially ‘I’ was thought to be Iceland and there was speculation that ‘C’ could be Ceylon the Chagos Archipelago Chile or Colombia. However subsequent research by sociolinguist Daniel Long based on the memories of the residents of Chichijima during the occupation period led to the conclusion that ‘C’ probably referred to Chichijima and it was further confirmed that nuclear weapons had also been deployed to Iwo Jima. (*2, *3)

From the entrance of the concrete bunker deep in the mountains of Chichijima Nagasawa walked further in. Past where natural light could penetrate the darkness grew deeper. He kept going further and further into the interior. The sound the humidity the unfamiliar texture of the floor and not knowing what lay ahead must have compelled him to go forward cautiously one step at a time. The inside of the concrete bunker was painted white even the walls and ceiling were painted white as if they had been bleached. The tunnel of the bunker with solid concrete behind it dripping with dense moisture from the vaulted ceiling was the only slight indication that it was part of the island. In the depths of one of the bunkers he saw another block of a concrete bunker also covered in white paint. A bunker within a bunker the room was constructed of concrete and doubly sealed by heavily corroded iron doors. When the sturdy iron doors were opened he was astonished. The walls and ceiling were completely covered with copper plating each seam of which was hermetically sealed. All that was left of some sort of paint that had been brushed onto the surface were darkish traces. The strange texture discolored copper plating corroded iron and slight moisture that had seeped in resembled a burial chamber that held a royal tomb from the time of ancient Egyptian civilization or an otherworldly space in an encounter by humanity with the unknown. It remained as a void that was severed from the world and from time and space. Nagasawa shined a light on the void that was this secret room. Historically there must have been something here but now it was only a place where something had already been lost. Nagasawa shined the light into the darkness in search of something in this nearly forgotten place. He photographed the vacant bunker hoping it would reveal its memories.

What do these photographs convey to us living today (I mean ‘us’ to include Bonin Islanders, Japanese, Americans, and people from other countries, as well as those living in the past and the future)? Japan promised by law to adhere to the Three Non-Nuclear Principles not to possess produce or permit the introduction of nuclear weapons. But nuclear weapons were brought here. Nuclear bombs were stored and retrieved here. Something that shouldn’t be had existed here. Nagasawa’s photographs of this place bring to our attention faint memories that lie behind what is shown in the photographs. The people who knew that time are disappearing giving way to a new generation of Bonin Islanders. It is a past of loss and forgetfulness. Nagasawa has unearthed and made visual the secret room—a void severed from time and space.

Human beings will inevitably forget things. Events that have passed recede into the past and things are forgotten. We repeatedly forget and past events sink and vanish into the vast sea of oblivion along with the tumultuous waves of time that are our daily reality. As we live in the present we encounter recognize remember and eventually forget things and events and they are ultimately lost. But there are things we cannot forget. They are our memories. Our memories are what we cannot forget even if we want to. They are etched deep within us and cannot be erased. And places remember. Memory resides in material things and places always remember the past. In the bunker deep in the mountains of Chichijima even as time passes eras change and generations shift even though soldiers guard dogs and those who knew that time dwindle in number the memory of that place remains waiting to be unearthed by someone someday.

Susan Sontag writes in her book On Photography (1977) “Today, everything exists to end in a photograph.” (*4)

Photography is the art of capturing moments in images. However when given time photographers do not just snap the shutter in an instant they observe things dispassionately and meticulously plan for the shot. Photographers construct ideas and manipulate time and light with their cameras. They give light time and while calculating that time they make the unseen world visible in a single image. It is an imaginary world that cannot be seen with the visible light of reality. The art of photography leads us to perceive the images as reality and it separates away a part of this world that we cannot give account of. It is precisely this meticulous thought and intention that is the image behind the photograph that leaps to the eye and stimulates the imagination to engrave itself deep into the mind’s eye. As a photographer Nagasawa waits. His clumsy persistence in waiting his brave patience to endure the long pitch-black darkness is transformed into a creative act that finds expression in surreal images. Time is revealed in each photograph and the images become messages that begin speaking to us.

Nagasawa’s photographs reflect the memory of the place. Like archaeology by recording substance and texture the memory of the place is unearthed and brought to light. Memory holds neither negative nor positive matter. Entering the bunker in Chichijima Astanding there shining light on the memory and digging and digging as if to unearth it Nagasawa sought to capture the ‘void’ in front of him in photographs. Today if everything can exist as a photograph the memory of the place that should have been lost the secret room in the bunker deep in the mountains of Chichijima that should have been buried things that should not exist have been brought together to dwell in the photographs as memories of the place. Mary’s Lamb was once here. Mary’s Lamb is no longer here. But Mary’s Lamb has not disappeared to some other place in the world. Nagasawa’s photographs pose a question to those of us living today. These photographs are memories to take into the future by those who will live from now on.
We were on the verge of forgetting this place. Now we cannot forget.

*1 Ogasawara Islands Tourist Guide
*2 “Genshi Heiki Haibi Sho” [Atomic weapons deployment report] November 1956
*3 Robert S. Norris William M. Arkin and William Burr “Where They Were,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
　 Vol.55 Issue 6 (December 1991)
*4 Susan Sontag On Photography (Translated by Kojin Kondo, Shobunsha)