2011.4.4 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, 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. 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:



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Koki Tanaka

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A poem written by 5 poets at once (first attempt)
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Koki Tanaka

2013

This artwork was part of a group of projects presented in the Japanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013...

Process of Blowing Flour
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Koki Tanaka

2010

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Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas: Battle of Easel Point - Memorial Project Okinawa
© » KADIST

Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba

2003

Filmed underwater, this is the third video in Nguyen-Hatsushiba’s “Memorial Project” series which began in 2001...

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Japanese House Series
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Tomoko Yoneda

2010

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Walking Through
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Koki Tanaka

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Walking Through is one of a series of videos—sometimes humorous, often absurd—that record the artist’s performative interactions with objects in a particular site...

Hako
© » KADIST

Hiraki Sawa

2006

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A poem written by 5 poets at once (first attempt)
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2012.3.24 Kesen-cho
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Japanese House Series
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Tomoko Yoneda

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Yoneda’s Japanese House (2010) series of photographs depicts buildings constructed in Taiwan during the period of Japanese occupation, between 1895 and 1945...

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Koki Tanaka

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Map of the Universe from El Cerro continues Chemi Rosado-Seijo’s long-term engagement with the community of El Cerro , a rural, working-class community living in the mountains of Naranjito, Puerto Rico...

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2012.3.24 Kesen-cho
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2013.10.20 Kesen-cho
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2012.11.4 Takata-cho
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