Artist Masao Okabe specializes in the frottage technique--a process in which an image is produced by rubbing a pencil or other tool over paper that itself is covering a stone object or other structure. Okabe has used this technique to tell the stories of structures at sites around the world. Some of these frottage works, including a group made at the site of a train station platform near Hiroshima that survived the atomic bombing, were exhibited in the Japanese Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale International Art Exhibition in 2007. These images of Hiroshima form the centerpiece of this volume. Editor Chihiro Minato has assembled Okabe's works from both Japan and Europe, together with photos documenting their creation, and presents them in a series of striking photographs accompanied by commentary in both English and Japanese. For Okabe, the process is as important as the result. His images preserve moments at the places he commemorates by visualizing them in a unique way. At Hiroshima, his striking juxtaposition of paving stones with the plants that grow beside them poses the question, "Is there a future for our past?"