IBASHO will present a solo show of Japanese photographer Munemasa Takahashi’s, presenting his project ‘Laying Stones’ as well as ‘The Lost & Found Project’.
Laying Stones
The series ‘Laying Stones’ is a very personal series that Takahashi has created to overcome the grief he felt after the death of his best friend, Kazuto Hoshi. Stacking stones is a Japanese tradition based on a folk belief in that says that a child who dies before his/her parent, is punished by having to lay stones after stones, in the riverbed in front of the gate to heaven, only to be demolished by a demon. The parent who lost the child will help out the child by laying stones to alleviate the child’s suffering. Takahashi started laying stones himself to find some closure after losing his beloved friend and meanwhile started to take photographs of flowers, plants, the light and the body, the cherry blossoms, those subjects that will face the end and regenerate in a different form.
A visit to a pilgrimage destination in Spain called ‘The End of the World’ which place felt more like the site of a beginning rather than the end to Takahashi. He realised that the exact same human activity of ‘layering stones’ held completely different meanings in two locations distant apart. One had a dark background, while the other, a bright background. He realised then that there are only two things we can do for the deceased loved ones. One is to bid farewell, and the other is to never forget. So instead of giving sad meaning to the action of laying stones, Takahashi believes it is important to pray that they departed to that somewhere where there is light.
Takahashi started laying stones himself to find some closure after losing his beloved friend and meanwhile started to take photographs of flowers, plants, the light and the body, the cherry blossoms, those subjects that will face the end and regenerate in a different form. A visit to a pilgrimage destination in Spain called ‘The End of the World’ which place felt more like the site of a beginning rather than the end to Takahashi. He realised that the exact same human activity of ‘layering stones’ held completely different meanings in two locations distant apart. One had a dark background, while the other, a bright background. He realised then that there are only two things we can do for the deceased loved ones. One is to bid farewell, and the other is to never forget. So instead of giving sad meaning to the action of laying stones, Takahashi believes it is important to pray that they departed to that somewhere where there is light.
Lost & Found Project
After the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Takahashi became a member of the Salvage Memory project, a volunteer effort to recover nearly 750,000 family photos that had been lost in the town of Yamamoto in Miyagi prefecture, one of the towns worst hit by the tsunami. The project returned more than 430,000 photos to their owners and it’s still continuing presently. While many of the photos were returned, there were also too heavily damaged photos to be returned which was thrown into a “Hopeless” box. Takahashi took these “Hopeless” photos and turned them into a travelling exhibition “Lost & Found Project” that aims to raise funds for tsunami survivors.
Munemasa Takahashi
Munemasa Takahashi is a Tokyo-based photographer born in 1980 in Tokyo. He graduated from Nippon Photography Institute in 2001. A year later he received the Superior prize in the 11th Canon New Cosmos of Photography. After 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, he became a member of Salvage Memory project, a volunteer effort to recover nearly 750,000 family photos that had been lost in the town of Yamamoto in Miyagi prefecture, one of the towns worst hit by the tsunami.
The exhibition will open from October 25 till December 3rd. IBASHO Gallery is opened from Friday till Sunday from 14.00 till 18.00 and by appointment. The address of the gallery is Tolstraat 67 in Antwerp, Belgium.
Source: IBASHO
