December 5th, 2007 – February 15th, 2008
The exhibited photos were reproduced utilizing handmade film. The original photos, which I found in my house, contain images of my family members and were taken between c. 1950 and c. 1965.
When my family decided to move, I sorted through the chest drawers and found many old photo albums. The photos, mostly taken by my deceased father, were of my mother as a young woman and her infant sons. When I first saw the figures of my mother, father and elder brothers who existed there in the photos, but whom I had not known at the time (for it was before I was born), I felt a sense of newness, while also feeling a sense of melancholy. However, as I continued to turn the pages in the albums, I became terribly confused. I began to wonder whether the people in the photos were really the mother and father that I know, and if the infant in the photos was really me or my brother, or perhaps someone else. Thus, instead of digging up my own memories from the albums, I felt as if I were plunged into a maze of time and space.
Those figures in the photos, which have been reprinted on handmade film, have indeed manifested themselves as strange unreal images that seem to absorb and carry one inside of the seductive thin film of the photos./Keishi Hori
The dismantling of oneself lies beyond pursuing the deepest of attachments toward oneself. This is akin to a trainee monk’s encounter with Buddha (which is to experience spiritual enlightenment). If photographs are to be seen as illusive images of this world (seen as an unreal reality), what lies ahead of the realities that are adhered to in the photos? According to Buddhism, we should always live in the moment. But then, for what reason do we pursue the ideal? One’s own solid physical self is nothing other than an illusive being. What are we able to pursue when we struggle in vain to even grasp ‘this moment’? Understanding oneself as being a self-concerned existence allows one to know that it must be dismantled; thus, such a supreme effort can lead one to encounter the Buddha./Kurenboh
Keishi Hori
1961 Born in Tokyo
1986 Graduated from Tokyo Zokei University
Keishi Hori website