Artist Statement

​

Many people say that Hokkaido has no history. At the same time, they also say that Hokkaido is rich in nature. I question these notions and trace the history of Hokkaido from the birth of the island to the present, exploring what meaning Hokkaido has had in history.

 

As of 2024, Russia is still at war with Ukraine, with no end in sight. Many Japanese people feel as if the war is far away and are not really aware of the fact that Hokkaido borders Russia. Historically, Japan and Russia have repeatedly fought wars over its territory, and the boundaries between the countries have changed over time. It is believed that people have lived on the island of Hokkaido since more than 20,000 years ago, the same time as on the main island of Japan. People from the direction of Russia and China flowed into the island via Sakhalin, and traces of cultural exchange have been unearthed. Based on these historical facts, my main theme is to explore how the people who have lived in Hokkaido have been connected to the world and how they have created cultural gradations.

 

In order to express this theme in my photographs, I refer to two contexts in my work. One is the context of Ansel Adams (1902-1984), who photographed the Native American lands as magnificent landscapes in great detail. The other is the context of New Topographics, including Lewis Baltz (1945-2014), who depicted the American landscape transformed by pioneers with an unflinching gaze. The reasons for using these two contexts are as follows.

First, Japan has a “kacho-fu-getsu” context that has influenced much of Japanese culture. Japanese landscape photography is also in this context, but I thought that the Japanese method of depicting beautiful nature with emotion would be dominated by a sense of beauty and lose sight of the essence of Hokkaido. Therefore, I referred to the context of American landscape photography, which has the same history of pioneering. The genealogy of human migrations shows that the groups that entered Hokkaido and the groups that crossed over to the Americas are closely related, and both lands have a history of transforming indigenous lands into different countries. For these reasons, I have referenced two contexts of American landscape photography.

 

The culture that existed prior to the naming of “Hokkaido” and the one that exists today are connected, and they are also connected in a gradient that transcends the concept of a country. However, it is also true that some things have been obscured in the name of pioneering history. The installation of a new culture causes a division from the previous history, and conflict arises. This is what is happening in the world, even here in Hokkaido.