Originally given at University of Pennsylvania, November 2024
Full Version of the essay is on my Substack feed.
All art is #postdestruction. Let me pause. Is that true? It will take many lectures to prove this case. I am going to focus on one pinhole today, a pinhole that leads from a tea master of 16th century Japan that is connected to Nagasaki.
The title #Postdestruction suggests not just an idea but a movement—a proactive conversation toward healing, a quiet rebellion against despair.
Like the fragments of a shattered vessel transformed by kintsugi, the Japanese-Korean art of repairing broken pottery with gold and urushi lacquer, it reflects a deep longing to reimagine the world after loss. As I write in Culture Care, every setback is a generative opportunity. The artist’s task is to do the impossible: to transform brokenness into beauty, despair into hope, and loss into something generative.
All art laments for what is broken: All art is funerary: All art is #postdestruction.
Postdestruction: A New Way of Seeing
#Postdestruction calls us into what John O’Donohue described as “an archaeology of longing.”^2 It is not about fixing, or rendering to bring back the past to its original form but it about the slow art of sifting through, to behold the excavated, pulverized earth, and begin to layer afresh, capturing the essence. I call my art “essentiation” rather than “abstraction” because my work is not about mere ideation into abstract principles, but a path toward the pulverized essence of Reality. This process of purification can also describe out #postdestruction journey. Fire can destroy or sanctify.
Kintsugi illuminates the connection between beauty and justice: justice without beauty risks rigidity and may become cold and cruel, ignoring the complexity of what really happened, turning “justice” into mere retribution. My art fights against dimensionless and reductive binaries of contemporary expressions, layers upon layers of broken, prismatic refractions. Beauty without justice becomes hollow, offering only superficial adornment without addressing the soul’s deeper wounds. Together, these twin longings beckon us to imagine a world through every crack—whether in pottery, culture, or humanity—we learn to see an entry point, a genesis moment, for generative transformation.
Rikyu and #PostDestruction: Beauty Amidst Violence
Sen no Rikyu, the 16th-century tea master, embodied this principle of beauty through brokenness. During Japan’s Sengoku Jidai—a time of relentless war and human suffering, Sengoku Jidai literally mean “war era”—Rikyu developed the tea ceremony, inherited from Chinese social gathering, as an act of contemplation and immersive act of peace-making. His wabi-cha style elevated simplicity of Korean culture and highlighted imperfections, celebrating the beauty of the common, or wabi - poverty: cracked bowls, weathered surfaces, and fleeting moments of stillness in violent times. It is notable that many of the finest Kintsugi bowls are Korean bowls (often common noodle bowls) used to serve Japanese warlords about to invade into Korea. Brokenness, in wabi-cha culture, is seen as sacred. The family of tea master will hold onto the fractured bowls as sacred and pass them on to their children, and then eventually be given to a Kintsugi master. A common noodle bowl perhaps costing pennys, will be given to a Urushi master who will use the best of lacqer and gold to create Kintsugi.
Rikyu’s tea practice, and his tea houses which he himself designed, became an act of quiet resistance, creating spaces of peace amidst the chaos. This deeply resonates with #postdestruction, as his art exemplifies how beauty can respond to suffering. Even as he faced political unrest and ultimately betrayal—culminating in his Seppuku ritual suicide ordered by the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi—his life and art endures as a testament to the power of deliberate care. Recent FX series “Shogun” features him and the history surrounding his rise.
Parallels to Christian Persecution and Hidden Resilience
Rikyu’s philosophy happens to intersect with the Christians history of Japan as I note in my “Silence and Beauty” book (IVPress, 2019), who, under the Tokugawa shogunate, practiced their faith in secret amidst brutal persecution.
The use of fumi-e—bronze or wooden “stepping images” of Christ or the Virgin Mary—was created by Nagasaki magistrates to identify hidden Christians, and has become an emblem of this oppression. Villagers were forced to trample on these sacred images as a public renunciation of faith, often on New Year’s Day, under the watchful eyes of the magistrates. Those who refused or hesitated to step on the fumi-e faced torture or execution, while those who complied bore the silent anguish of betrayal. Over centuries, the fumi-e, smoothed and blackened by countless trampling, became physical markers of this coercion and a haunting, and smoothened wabi symbol of resilience.^4
The trauma of these acts left an imprint not only on the hidden Christians (kakure kirishitan) but on Japan’s collective psyche. In the smoothed surface of the fumi-e.
Endo’s Subversive Art
In the 1950s, Japanese author Shusaku Endo wandered the streets of Nagasaki, haunted by the remnants of the destruction of the atomic bombing. His search was for more than to depict the melted city; he sought to uncover what contributed to the insidious nature of nationalism, brutal markings of Japanese history, but at the same time exposing the layers of faith, noble suffering, and resilience woven into the lives of Catholic survivors. He envisioned a protagonist, later called Kiku, a survivor of generations of persecuted, and the Atomic bomb which landed a few feet from a church that symbolized resilience of Nagasaki faithful. It was no irony to this young writer that the bomb detonated on top of a few hundred faithful worshippers at Urakami Cathedral, (Slide 15) as they gathered to celebrate a special Mass (the Assumption of the Virgin). More Catholic believers died that day than what is recorded as martyred in the 250 years of persecution in Japan. Urakami Church then represented one of the resilient communities of Nagasaki, literally built up from the days of persecution, and hidden Christianity, by hundreds of faithful remnants. All incinerated on one cloudy morning on August 9th, 1945.
But then, Shusaku Endo walked into a municipal museum and encountered a fumi-eThe literal footprints of coercion left on these fumi-e—smoothed and blackened by centuries of trampling—remain visible today.
These artifacts are not merely relics of persecution, but haunting symbols of trauma embedded in Japan’s collective psyche. The suffering extends beyond the Christians forced to renounce their faith; it echoes through Japan’s cultural memory, bearing witness to an era when faith was both a profound source of resilience and a target of relentless brutality. For more than 250 years, this practice left a “negative imprint” on Japan’s spiritual landscape, shaping the nation’s historical consciousness.
To Endo, the worn surfaces of the fumi-e became an intersection of historical traumas that informed his masterpiece Silence. (Slide 18) To understand Nagasaki’s #postdestruction journey, Endo implicitly argued, one must first confront its past—a past marked by hidden Christianity, the endurance of faith under persecution, and even hope amidst annihilation.
In Silence, Endo’s protagonist—a Jesuit priest who choose to slip into Nagasaki during the Sakoku period, grappling with faith amidst suffering—embodies the tension between betrayal and resilience. For Endo, as for #postdestruction, healing begins by gathering and acknowledging these fractures, embedded in the atomic soil of Nagasaki and the cultural memory of Japan. The story of Silence is not merely about the 17th-century persecution of Christians; in Endo’s mind, the traumas of that past and the reality of Nagasaki overlapped significantly. For Endo, writing a story of #postdestruction Nagasaki required first capturing the persecution of the past, the blood of martyrs still crying out from the ground. By honoring these scars, even amidst profound loss, he illuminated a path toward a fragile yet enduring hope.
My work in traditional Nihonga techniques—using crushed minerals (literally pulverized earth), silver, and gold—were visual meditations to respond to Endo. My series Silence and Beauty, which reflects on Japan’s past, as well as my own journey, and explores the interplay of trauma of the persecuted.
Art as Witness and Altar
On September 11, 2001, I stood on Murray Street in TriBeCa, just blocks from the Twin Towers. Trapped in a subway as the first tower collapsed above us, I witnessed firsthand the devastation and disorientation of that day. Later, as ash filled the streets and the skyline was irrevocably altered, as a Japanese-American, I struggled with the term "Ground Zero"—a term hauntingly reminiscent of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, now applied to my own neighborhood.
“Nagasaki Koi”, seen here, was taken in front of Urakami Cathedral in 2002. I pilgrimaged here with friends, haunted by my own “Ground Zero” as I wrestled with raising my children there as “Ground Zero children”. There are gigantic koi carps swimming about there now, all seem too monstrous, too beautiful, and too powerful. I took these footages, and I reversed them. Art is prayer; a prayer to reverse time, perhaps, to see if #postdestruction, we can endeavor to mend to heal Slowing and reversing the footage, I transformed it into a visual prayer, a meditation on whether, in a #postdestruction world, we can mend what has been broken. Like Rikyu’s tea ceremonies, this act sought to sanctify fragments of life, offering a sacramental attention to what remains.
Further up the hills, about a mile away, stands the monument to the 26 Martyrs of Japan, a group of men and boys who were crucified in 1597, soon after Rikyu’s demise, as a warning against the spread of Christianity. Here I stand in front of Yasutake Funakoshi’s 1962 memorial as the 26 Martyrs looks out to the ocean beyond, gazing at the horizon.^6 The walk of the 26 Martyrs of Japan was a harrowing journey of faith and endurance, undertaken by a group of Christians who were condemned to death in 1597. These martyrs, including six foreign missionaries (Franciscans and Jesuits) and 20 Japanese Christians, among them two young boys—12-year-old Ibaraki and 13-year-old Anthony—were sentenced by the Tokugawa shogunate as part of a crackdown on Christianity, which was perceived as a threat to Japan's sovereignty and social order.
The journey began in Kyoto, near where Rikyu’s life ended, where the martyrs were publicly humiliated and paraded through the streets as a warning to others. From there, they were forced to walk over 600 miles to Nagasaki, where their executions were to take place. Along the way, they were subjected to harsh treatment: chained together, exposed to the elements, and mocked by onlookers. Despite this, the martyrs remained steadfast in their faith, often praying and singing hymns as they traveled.
The walk ended on Nishizaka Hill in Nagasaki, where the 26 were crucified in a manner meant to mimic the death of Christ. Each was tied or nailed to a cross and then speared to ensure death. Their sacrifice became a powerful symbol of the resilience of faith amidst persecution and marked the beginning of a long period of hidden Christianity in Japan.
Art can be an emissary of memory and hope, bearing poignant witness to what has been lost. Like the reversed movement of Nagasaki Koi, we are haunted by our memories and Ground Zero conditions all about us.
Justice and Beauty: Twins of Longing
Justice, like beauty, remains elusive and unfulfilled, stirring within us a yearning that C.S. Lewis described as Sehnsucht—a deep, bittersweet longing for something transcendent.^5 When we seek justice for a survivor of violence, no verdict can truly restore what has been lost; no act of beauty can give rest to the soul’s ache. Yet this longing itself can become a gift, pointing beyond the immediate toward the eternal.
I was asked to be on a radio interview that Japanese NHK station produced for the 75th anniversary of Nagasaki bombing. One of the granddaughters of a survivor of Nagasaki was interviewed. She spoke of repeated persecution throughout Nagasaki history (“kuzure” history), and the history of the Urakami Cathedral, which was built on the ground on which magistrates used Fumi-e to identify and persecute Christians every year. Then, the Cathedral melted down during that fateful day. After describing the atrocities that visited the faithful in Nagasaki, she told us that “we have been given blessings upon blessings”.
Yes, she called the persecutions and the Atomic bomb to be repeated blessings to show forth God’s grace to have chosen them as a witness.
The interviewer turned to me after this statement and asked me “Fujimura san. As a Christian, what do you think of what she said?” I hesitated, and then said “I struggle with what she said. What she said is impossible… and inspirational.” To call repeated persecution of Christians, after experiencing the exile and cruel treatments they suffered as a community, and the atomic destruction as a “blessing”? #postdestruction is full of these impossible questions. Perhaps as she notes, we as survivors who carry the weight of trauma, the only way forward is to be grateful. The alternative is to remain bitter, remain committed to retribution. We do not have to be grateful for the evil done to us, but what our hearts and lives can point to create, to continue to create, into the future.
Artists are the “canaries in the coal mine of culture,” attuned to disruptions others may not yet see. Art is about impossibilities. As I wrote in Culture Care, “Artists serve as barometers for what is happening beneath the surface of culture.”^7 Just as ecosystems collapse under unchecked exploitation, cultural ecosystems are eroded by commodification, fragmentation, and the toxins of culture wars. Artists, through their sensitivity and vision, remind us of what must be tended and renewed. Artists do this work of cultivating the cultural soil, despite being told many times that it is impossible work.
Art as a Threshold of Hope
Renewal in a #postdestruction world does not have to begin with grand gestures but needs to start with small, intentional acts of care. Wendell Berry writes, “To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope.”^8 To cherish what remains, of the Earth, and in us. This applies to culture at large as well: to honor what remains, to behold the fragments and nurture hope is to imagine a future not end by destruction, but walking through a fire of sanctification. . What may sound simple to care for our soil of culture may sound impossible today.
The upcoming exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania will explore these themes—the paradox of a lament and hope, beholding the realities of brokenness, and longing for justice and beauty. Through our work, I hope to invite others into a #postdestruction world. Art is #postdestruction.
Footnotes
I. Makoto Fujimura, Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2017).
II. John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong (New York: Harper Perennial, 1999).
III. Okakura Kakuzo, The Book of Tea (New York: Dover Publications, 1964).
IV. Shusaku Endo, Silence, trans. William Johnston (New York: Picador Modern Classics, 2016).
V. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962).
VI. Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2002).