KYOTOGRAPHIE is the name of the international photography festival that takes place every year in Kyoto. It also beholds Japan House London’s first photography exhibition: swapping the need for a plane ticket for London dwellers to see the majesty of artists like Kawada Kikuji and Iwane Ai. The former 93-year-old forgivably could not make the exhibition, but Iwane graced visitors for its opening week, hosting tours and her own talk The invisible connections between distant places.
By design, you can make your way through the venue via either Kawada or Iwane’s works first. Iwane begins her section as a very deliberate path between curved walls of blue and red film, narrowing around bends as you are compelled to focus on the parallels between two scenes: a Bon dance in Hawaii and a Fukushima Ondo. Iwane’s entire side of the exhibition – in its three sections – is an ode to memory. Microhistories live on only in the memories of people, but even the strongest recollection is at risk of eroding over time. Such a risk is exactly why the people keep dancing.
Iwane made use of a borrowed 360 degree camera to capture dramatic panoramas of scenes in Fukushima, where the tri-disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster has left this part of the map a ghost town. We also get glimpses of cherry blossoms during pandemic lockdown, projected on with unnatural colours and scenes to produce something absolutely haunting. Finally, at the pinnacle of her showcase, is Iwane’s most personal works yet, still visually tied in with the preceding sections. We’ll leave that with you to discover it for yourself.
In part, Kawada also presents his documentations of the aftermath of disaster. We come across some rather abstract, albeit elegant, monochrome captures, and discover that these are the surfaces of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial – the only building still on its feet when the first atomic bomb hit. In his second section, we join in his fascination of cosmic phenomena, witness burning clouds, and fittingly orbit around a central display of his physical works. Kawada wraps up his side with projections of his most recent works.
Japan House has once again transformed a blank space into a profound journey: one that is vast, entraps your mind like the winding paths of Iwane’s first section, and will leave you a slightly different person on its exit. The effects of the exhibition will surely reside in the mind for a long time after departing, just like the memories that never fade from those with the strongest hearts.
You can book tickets to KYOTOGRAPHIE here.