We are always here. It is me, we are us. But I am me.” — From “Masako Kobayashi’s Life Diary: The Village Teacher Era〈2023-2025〉

Using a centuryold diary and photographs, this series traces how memory drifts across time and between people. Analog images become digital data and return as photographs inscribed with microscopic code, allowing what has faded to surface once more. Inspired by Masako Kobayashi’s records, the work reflects on an unknowable past and on the fragile forms of empathy and imagination that draw us toward it.

Izumi Tanaka

Born in Osaka, Izumi Tanaka is a faculty member at the Japan Institute of Photography and Film and Managing director Atelier Ricken Backer. Recent exhibitions include Roots at BLOOM GALLERY (2025) and KG+ 2025 / Atelier Ricken Backer fifth exhibition.