2013.10.20 Kesen-cho

- Photography (Photography)

Naoya Hatakeyama

location: Iwate, Nihon
year born: 1958
gender: male
nationality: Japanese

Naoya Hatakeyama’s series Rikuzentakata (2011) documents the devastating aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Throughout the series of sixty C-prints (five of which are included in the Kadist Art Foundation’s collection), Hatakeyama’s photographs depict scenes of torn landscapes and leveled homes, demolished villages and massive piles of detritus pummeled beyond recognition. The images serve as records of disaster, seemingly driven by an intense need to bear witness to collective trauma. Hatakeyama’s photographs, however, emerged from a painful and personal grief: the series focuses on the near-destruction of the artist’s hometown, an event which resulted in both his mother’s death and the deaths of many friends and neighbors. Rikuzentakata bears the ethical weight and responsibility of photojournalism even as its genesis comes out of a deeply felt loss and the ambiguity of survivor’s guilt. But for every desolate landscape on view in Rikuzentakata , Hatakeyama also offers glimpses of possible regeneration and hope: in 2013.10.20 Kesen-cho (2013), a forest of evergreen trees suggests the possibility for new growth amongst an overturned and muddied hillside, while a faint rainbow streaking across the sky in 2012.3.24 Kesen-cho (2013) offers a familiar but poetic gesture towards a better future. Hatakeyama suggests that what’s lost can never be fully recovered, but that with time, those wounds can slowly heal and life can begin again.


Naoya Hatakeyama is one of Japan’s leading contemporary photographers. His work frequently explores the relationship between natural and built environments, and he is particularly invested in examining how urbanization produces violent effects in surrounding landscapes. In 2012, Hatakeyama was the subject of a mid-career retrospective at SFMOMA titled Naoya Hatakeyama: Natural Stories, an exhibition of large-scale photographs centered around themes of nature, destruction, and human will. His photographs have been acquired by many international collections such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Osaka; the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; the Swiss Foundation for Photography, Winterthur; la Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris; and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.


Colors:



Walking Through
© » KADIST

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© » KADIST

Koki Tanaka

2013

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© » KADIST

Takahiro Iwasaki

2008

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© » KADIST

Aki Sasamoto

2012

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Tomoko Yoneda

2010

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Walking Through
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Koki Tanaka

2009

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Untitled (Family Project)
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Motoyuki Daifu

2010

Seven family members and a cat all squeezed into the small five-room house, where Motoyuki Daifu grew up in Yokohama...

Hako
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Hiraki Sawa

2006

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2012.3.24 Kesen-cho
© » KADIST

Naoya Hatakeyama

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Japanese House Series
© » KADIST

Tomoko Yoneda

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Untitled (Family Project)
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2010

Seven family members and a cat all squeezed into the small five-room house, where Motoyuki Daifu grew up in Yokohama...

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2012.3.24 Kesen-cho
© » KADIST

Naoya Hatakeyama

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2011.5.1 Yonesaki-cho
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2012.11.4 Takata-cho
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2011.4.4 Kesen-cho
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