3rd Kyoto University-Inamori Foundation Joint Kyoto Prize Symposium [Arts] Miyako Ishiuchi

3rd Kyoto University-Inamori Foundation Joint Kyoto Prize Symposium
http://kuip.hq.kyoto-u.ac.jp/
https://ocw.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/opencourse-en/158

July 10, 2016

[Arts]
ISHIUCHI Miyako
Photographer

Title of Presentation
“Photographing the Presence of Things Left Behind”

Photography was invented to record the scenes in front of us and the people and things that exist now. Everything that appears on photographic paper exists not only for the photographer, but also for many other people who are not present at the time. Photography is a special mechanism that enables us to see worlds that we have never encountered, seen, or visited. Photographed images of objects seem to transcend the information contained in objects themselves, and become entities of light beamed out into an endless realm of images.

While retaining this essential illusion, photography has changed with the times dramatically, and today few people believe that what appears in photographs is reality. Photography crops the world with rectangular frames, manipulates, fabricates, and induces the viewer to see things in a certain way. It has become the ideal artistic medium for inventing something new out of what appears to be familiar reality, and with an understanding of its specific characteristics, anything is possible in this medium.

Since 2000 I have been photographing things that people left behind. These things are the undergarments, clothing, and accessories that dead people wore, belongings that were left behind after people died. The most symbolic belongings are those in the series ひろしま/hiroshima.

There is a blouse worn by a girl who went missing on August 6, 1945. The photographs of the blouse are not an attempt to record or document “reality.” Rather, the blouse is simply a presence in front of me, a garment that encapsulates the 70 years that have passed. I prepared and arranged it beautifully so it would be ready if the girl should come back, and I sought to recreate the feeling of excitement when she wore the newly made blouse for the first time.

Few people are aware that left-behind items are still being newly donated to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum every year. How much has changed since that day in 1945?

This year, too, I will show this ひろしま/hiroshima series all over the world.