About

     My practice explores the “entanglements” and “distortions” that have shaped Japanese society from the postwar period to the present, seeking to reinterpret the very notion of the “postwar.” I sense, in the atmosphere of contemporary Japan, the lingering tension between victimhood and aggression—the value distortions born from a social structure that was inverted by defeat. What constitutes as the “postwar” era? Even after the era of high economic growth, when it was said that “the postwar is over,” an unresolved postwar still seems to dwell within us. Standing in the midst of that unanswered question, I continue to create, driven by the desire to confront what lies between past and present, myth and reality, memory and record.  

     At the foundation of every nation lies a myth. When the stories that once bound people together collapse, how does society rise again? I attempt to illuminate the remnants of such broken myths—those that have lost their function and sunk to the bottom of society—through the medium of photography. Whether these remnants are to be praised or criticized is left to the viewer. I violently extract the signs scattered throughout Japan’s urban landscape—signs that may hold the key to decoding the postwar’s distortions and entanglements—as if retracing the violent history of photography itself.

     Alongside my study of photographic theory, I maintain a critical gaze toward the medium. I am particularly attentive to the uniquely Japanese genealogy of photography, shaped by the linguistic translation of photograph into “Shashin,” a word that carries the burden of “truth.” By situating my work within the lineage of Japanese photographers such as Daidō Moriyama and Takuma Nakahira of Provoke, and by examining it in relation to contemporary media environments, I seek new possibilities for photographic expression. Ultimately, my work is an inquiry into the relationship between society and photography.