Echo

I grew up in a small town in the countryside in the northeast region of Japan. There were few lights to light up the town,so on days when the moon and stars couldn't be seen there was a deep darkness that made me afraid of night falling. In winter the snow blanketed the earth, turning the town into a white world. Even at night the sky was bright. It seemed like I had wandered into a completely different worldthat was strangely wonderful and I would gaze at it for a long time. I began photographing the echo series in 2008 over a period of eight years,guided by myself as I was then. Sometimes my field of vision was taken away, covered by a great white veil so that I could see nothing but myself. I wondered whether it was the real world or just one that I was imagining in my heartand walked on, wandering through this indeterminate space. Focusing my mind, I could hear sounds of breathing of various kinds;as I took photographs in response to each of these sounds the emotional baggage in my mind gradually fell away. It seemed that I was touching the world just as it appeared to mewhen I was a child; it was a gentle time of remembering the past with fondness and yearning. — excerpt from the artist’s afterword