12th Miki Jun Award （2010）

This exhibition consists of pictures that the photographer took of his own father.　
He disappeared suddenly and then didn’t show up for a few months. Repeatedly disappearing made him a “nobody”. He doesn’t have any possessions, relationships with others, his own beliefs ? nothing.
Becoming “nobody” is probably what his father wanted. Once he became “nobody”, he didn’t need to think of himself, nor others who think of him.
An author once wrote something to this effect: “If you can get to know others slightly, it’s because they didn’t refuse your knowing them. If there is a person who can’t say “I’m cold” when it is cold, all we can do is just observe the person from a distance. However, what emerges from this observation is another issue.”
The photographer thinks his father shivers when it is cold. But even if someone asks him “Why are you shivering?”, he would just say “I don’t know.” Nobody can tell if he really doesn’t know it or just doesn’t want to think about it. Probably, he doesn’t know which either.
Color: 17 works.

The photographer’s father repeatedly disappeared, becoming a man who has no property, relationships with others, beliefs or anything else. These works consist of photos of his father. However, the reason why this is not an ordinary “taking photos of parents” is not only because of this strange relationship.
His father staring vacantly into space, a chaotic room, a scrap of paper… what emerges from a series of fragmented images is not so much a father figure, but, so to speak, a hollow inside the human being. The photographer was not trying to add significance to his father while taking his pictures, but indicating the hollow through tranquil and lyrical photographs while removing images and meaning from around it.
Nonetheless, the world would continue to give his father a name, and meanings. For his father, living is an everlasting escaping from that world. Because of that, these images form a very rare space where his father - who wants to be nobody - can possibly exist. These high-quality finished works convince me of it.

Born in Kyoto in 1981.
Graduated from Kobe University.
Won the prize at the 28th “One-Tsubo” exhibition.
Currently, attending Tokyo University of the Arts, Department of Inter Media Art Major doctoral course.