Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal

Overlooking the ocean, near the town of Ōtsuchi, Japan, a white telephone booth containing a disconnected rotary phone sits within the Bell Gardia Kujira-Yama garden. Itaru Sasaki, its creator, named this booth kaze no denwa, or the wind phone. Sasaki built the wind phone in 2011 to “call” his cousin, who had recently died of cancer. He built the wind phone for personal use; however, after the March 11, 2011, earthquake/tsunami that claimed the lives of nearly twenty thousand people and left around twenty-five hundred missing, the wind phone unexpectedly became a destination for others mourning the loss of their loved ones. This essay examines how the wind phone reinvents the communication technology of the telephone as a technology of mourning that helps the living feel heard by and connected to the dead. Taking on multiple forms, the wind phone offers an interactive sensorial encounter that is not necessarily available through traditional material objects associated with mourning, such as gravestones, statues, and plaques.