Three embroidered prayers for recovery go on show at Minamisanriku memorial

Three large embroidered artworks about recovery, hope and rebirth are now on special display in Minamisanriku, a town in Miyagi Prefecture. Each one is built from 100,000 to 220,000 tiny squares of thread, stitched with one needle.

The series is called the "Prayer Trilogy". It is shown at Minamisanriku 311 Memorial, a facility that preserves the story of the Great East Japan Earthquake. According to the organisers' description, the three pieces use light to brighten the faces of the people looking at them.

Who made them?

The artist is Mayumi Hoshino, 54, an embroiderer from Tokyo. She made the works with people affected by the 2011 disaster and by the Noto Peninsula earthquake in mind.

After 2011, Hoshino ran embroidery classes in temporary housing so people had a place to meet. She has also held readings of picture books about the disaster in various places. Her work has been shown at UNESCO headquarters in Paris and at the UN office in Geneva. Since 2023 she has been a tourism ambassador for Ishinomaki, a city in Miyagi.

What are the three works?

Resilience – Thousand-Armed Kannon (2021) is about recovery. Hoshino made it for the tenth anniversary of the disaster. She shows darkness with ten different shades of black, which makes the glow of the halo stand out even more.

Dance of Heaven (2024) is about hope. It was inspired by Benzaiten, a goddess enshrined on Kinkasan island in Ishinomaki, close to the epicentre of the 2011 quake. A heavenly maiden who cherishes nature carries both joy and sorrow up to the sky.

Phoenix (2026) is about rebirth. It links the recovery of the areas hit by the Noto earthquake, which struck on 1 January 2024, to the legendary bird that is reborn by flying into fire. The motif comes from a sunrise Hoshino saw in Noto before the quake.

Worth a close look

From a distance, the works look like paintings. Step closer and you can see every single stitch.

The three pieces were made over the past five years, since the tenth anniversary of the 2011 disaster. Seen together, they follow a path from loss to a hope for the future.