Ana Vaz on Fukushima, Yoko Hayasuke & Motherhood

The acclaimed filmmaker Ana Vaz has built a career on exploring the intersections of ecology, memory, and the lingering trauma of human-made catastrophe, and her latest project is no exception. During a recent discussion, Vaz spoke at length about the profound impact of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster on her artistic vision, the underrecognized contributions of Japanese artist Yoko Hayasuke, and offered a strikingly personal reflection on the nature of motherhood versus the undead.

Vaz, known for her experimental documentaries that blur the line between observation and essay, did not frame Fukushima merely as a news event. For her, the disaster functions as a persistent psychological and environmental scar, a reference point that reshapes how we understand time and place. She described the region not just as a site of radioactive contamination, but as a complex living archive where the natural world continues to assert itself against the backdrop of abandoned infrastructure. Her interest lies in the way that a place can hold multiple, conflicting histories simultaneously - the cheerfulness of pre-disaster life, the panic of evacuation, and the eerie, slow reclamation by flora and fauna.

It is within this framework that Vaz turned her attention to the work of Yoko Hayasuke, a figure she argues has been largely overlooked in mainstream discussions of art that engages with nuclear trauma. While Hayasuke’s oeuvre may not be widely known to global audiences, Vaz sees her practice as essential. She praised Hayasuke’s ability to find intimacy within the monumental scale of disaster, focusing on the small, overlooked details that official narratives often miss. Rather than depicting the dramatic meltdown itself, Hayasuke’s work reportedly deals with the quiet aftermath - the objects left behind, the altered routines of residents, and the slow, uncertain process of rebuilding a normal life. Vaz’s admiration suggests a shared sensibility: both artists seem less interested in spectacle than in the subtle, enduring consequences that shape human behavior long after the cameras have left.

Perhaps the most striking moment of the conversation came when Vaz was asked about a somewhat philosophical choice she had apparently posed at some point: the preference to be a mother rather than a zombie. She elaborated that this is not a simple pop-culture dichotomy but a metaphor for agency and presence. In her view, to be a mother - or to choose any role of active care and creation - is to insist on a future, however uncertain. It is an act of defiance against the numb, drifting passivity she associates with a zombified existence, a state of being that merely consumes and staggers forward without purpose. This framing echoes the themes in her films, where characters and landscapes are frequently caught between the urge to rebuild and the weight of what has been lost. Choosing motherhood, in her framing, is a conscious rejection of despair; it is a decision to participate in the messy, generative work of life rather than to merely survive it.

Vaz’s remarks also hinted at a broader critique of how we process ecological grief. She suggested that the constant barrage of apocalyptic imagery can render us emotionally inert, turning us into the very zombies she disavows. Art, she implies, has a responsibility to cut through that numbness. By looking at the specifics of Fukushima, or by championing the nuanced observations of someone like Hayasuke, she hopes to restore a sense of scale and human proportion to events that otherwise feel too enormous to grasp.

The filmmaker’s career path has consistently favored this approach. Her prior works have often utilized fragmentary narratives and a painterly eye, turning documentary footage into something closer to a dream or a half-remembered nightmare. In discussing the new project, she offered little in the way of plot summary - that would be contrary to her method - but instead described a tonal goal: to create a film that feels like a field recording of a mind trying to make sense of a broken world.

As the conversation wound down, Vaz returned to the personal. The choice between motherhood and zombicism is not a hypothetical for her; it is a lived decision that informs her daily priorities. She sees the act of caring for a child as a form of resistance against the clock of environmental and political decay. It is a statement that life, in its most vulnerable and demanding form, is still worth choosing. In an era where despair is often the default cultural mode, her stance is a deliberately radical, hopeful one. For audiences who have followed her work, this new interview offers a compelling entry point into her thinking, ensuring that whatever she produces next will be a meditation not just on disaster, but on the stubborn, defiant choice to remain human.

Source: Variety