MIRROR

Masanori Hata 

Oshika Kabuki is a local theatre tradition in the town of Oshika in Nagano Prefecture that has continued for more than three hundred years.

Its origins are unclear, but there is a record of a performance back in 1767. The tradition has been passed down by the people of the village through changing times. This timespan of three hundred years is of course connected to the present, but it is not visible to the human eye.

That inspired me to try, through this work, to communicate with somewhere a little removed from this time and this place. But where exactly is that slightly distant location? 

To find some clues, I decided to start by recruiting photographers, models, and other collaborators from among the village inhabitants. In a village that loves Kabuki, many people volunteered, and we quickly had a framework in place. I thought that with eleven people, including me, taking photographs, we would see a good range of different scenes, and I was happy to see the work begin to take shape when the dedicated photographer role (me) was scrapped. Some of the people taking photographs were Kabuki actors and stagehands, while some were family members and spectators. This created a way of looking at the same place and the same time from a variety of perspectives that ought to be natural and sensible. This perspective--which is not special in any way--breaks the powerful relationship between photographer and subject, creating a stage on which it is both you and me who are the ones photographed. 

As I continued visiting and staying in Oshika Village to shoot photos, I heard many stories from the villagers. Listening to them, a strange sensation welled up within me, as if I were gazing at a tiny galaxy folded over on itself. A number of stories emerged from this: stories that connect you, me, and someone else; stories of something that has a 300-year horizon; and stories that connect the past, present and future. At some point, I became convinced that these stories would overlap with one another and make an impressive appearance in the work. Then, we began shooting scenes that are not usually seen by spectators, who normally only have access to the Kabuki rehearsals and performances. There was a flurry of incomprehensible orders (stage directions), which may have confused people at first. However, in due course, we became used to being on camera, as if we were messing about in front of family and friends.

I also walked around the village taking photos all year long. There was nature in abundance, flowers blooming and withering, crumbled cliffs, rows of numbered bags of soil, scars of the 1961 disaster, bats in cold sleep dangling in salt caves, rivers and hot springs, a tunnel being dug around the clock for the maglev train, large trucks kicking up dust as they roar by, ectoplasm on old houses, the Median Tectonic Line and the zero magnetic field of the Fossa Magna, a massive tree hiding hundreds of years of memories in its rings, light and sacks filled with new forms of nature worship, a tower for communicating with satellites, and rocks. At night, the voices of poets rang out and music could be heard from the mountain tops. The beginning and end of each day was clearly felt, and the arrival of spring, summer, fall, and winter was experienced with more clearly defined boundaries than in the city. We gained a greater sense of affinity as we faced each new day, knowing that the days would surely arrive, one after another, until a certain moment in time.

Through this process, we collected more than five thousand photographs. Even film that looked like it had captured nothing had such beautiful colors; I felt that we were connected to the world somewhere. Looking back at these photographs, I began to think that this slightly distant place was not a fictional place, but rather a place between the past and the present, or between the present and the future. By thinking about the past and contemplating the future from this time and this place, people come to possess the power of imagination and freedom. I learned that without even realizing it, we are always communicating with places that are a little removed, and we are looking in all sorts of directions. Let's begin to talk again about the knowledge we all had when we were born, like the time when I was someone else, you were me, and someone was you.

JAPAN IN DER DDR

Tamami Iinuma  

Japan in der DDR - Three Japanese Houses Found in East Germany is a project composed of photographs and texts that trace a journey of discovery sparked by Tamami Iinuma's encounter with the still-standing building Interhotel Merkur, Leipzig (now The Westin) in the former East German city of Leipzig, where she unexpectedly arrived in 2008 and lived for approximately six years beginning in 2009.

Shortly after discovering the Merkur, she learned that it was the first European project undertaken by the Japanese company Kajima Corporation. The hotel was one of four large-scale turnkey projects the company carried out in the German Democratic Republic (GDR; in German: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or DDR) in the late 1970s. The other three projects were the International Trade Center in Berlin, the Interhotel Bellevue in Dresden, and the Grand Hotel in Berlin.

Following these projects, Kajima established a regional headquarters in London, offering comprehensive services--from feasibility studies to actual construction--to Japanese companies expanding into EU countries. Today, the company operates out of offices in Warsaw and Prague and continues to be involved in a wide range of construction projects across Europe.

Among these four buildings, Iinuma chose to focus on the hotels. Her interest stemmed from the theatrical quality of hotels--spaces that often serve as backdrops for films and novels. In addition, while researching materials related to the Merkur, she repeatedly encountered instances where the word "hotel" was used interchangeably with "house." Having long been drawn to the poetics of the "house," she felt an intense pull toward this linguistic and conceptual overlap.

Mother's Covers

Shitamichi Motoyuki 

In 2012, after my marriage, my wife and I moved into her mother's house in Aichi.
It was the first place I called home after moving out of my small Tokyo apartment, where l'd lived for over ten years since starting art school.
The house in Aichi was a beautiful time-worn place, filled with carefully built-in furniture, all designed by my wife's grandfather, an architect.
I began sharing meals with my wife and mother-in-law ── a rare kind of family time I hadn't had since high school. I was becoming part of a new family.
Naturally, there were different customs, little things that puzzled me. Where to find things, where to put them back, what to add to the miso soup...
Each day brought new discoveries, and I felt like a stray cat wandering in and out of the house, or like someone who'd washed ashore on a small, unknown island, starting a new adventure.

In March 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck.The tsunami and the nuclear power plant accident had followed.
I saw how easily the ordinary could vanish, swept away in a moment, and it made me feel fiercely attached to the small, everyday details of life.
Experiencing such a loss gave me more feelings towards the people close to me and to the things around me.
I hope you understand what I mean ── but I do believe things can be born out of losses.
The thing is that people tend to forget quickly, wanting to return to their routines.
It's like leaving from that unknown island to your home ── your comfort zone.
But I wanted to keep hold of that new sensitivity that was already growing within myself as I started over in the time-worn house in a suburb area.

One morning, I noticed an improvised "cover" over a teapot. It was a bit clumsy,
a little awkward, and endearing ── a lovely, everyday tablescape.
From then on, each morning, with my heart beating just a bit faster,
I'd sneak into the kitchen with a camera in my hand.

After finding my motif to take pictures on the morning table,
I kept capturing these small scenes, thinking,
"Primitive people in caves probably made coverings for things too..."
It really felt like glimpsing a preserved, ancient part of ourselves,
and somehow it made me delighted.

This ritual continued for about two years.
Then I had a chance to hold a small solo exhibition with the photos.
I printed them all and showed them to my mother-in-law.
She was puzzled at first, but she gave her permission to show the photos in the exhibition.
This "confession" meant the end of the project as she'd now be self-conscious of her little routines.
Soon, though, the photos found their way to exhibitions in different countries.

Several years later, my wife and I had a daughter.
My wife became a mother, and with that came a new tablescape.
My mother-in-law had begun improvising new covers daily
── no longer mindful of my camera. Then one day, I saw a cover made by my wife.
This was the beginning of "Mother's Covers: Season 2".
And once again, I began capturing these scenes, now with my phone.
A new life created different dynamics, layers and connections
within our family and it also brought me back to the days of photographing the "covers".

Related Event

写真集『ははのふた』刊行記念トーク 日時：2025年7月4日（金）19:00〜 会場：誠光社（京都市上京区中町通丸太町上ル俵屋町437） 定員25名、参加無料（1ドリンクオーダー制）