THEME #46Winners2023AUG
PLANT LIFE
SHORT LIST
Statement
FUKUSHIMA BLUE
The sea holds a special place for the people of Hamadori in Fukushima. It's a site of cherished memories with family and friends, a place where the tsunami, and a location that forces contemplation of the nuclear power plant. Now, the discharge of treated water from the nuclear plant has begun. The repetitive reassurance of its safety, framed in scientific terms, sounds like an overused excuse. In the news, the issue of the nuclear plant is often treated as if it were only Fukushima's problem. Shouldn't the problem of Nuclear Plants be a global concern? To convey Fukushima beyond mere information and make it an experiential reality, I use Cyanotype prints. What messages does the landscape painted by Fukushima's nature have for us?
Profile
Kazuki Takeshita
Born in Hiroshima in 1988. After high school, traveled while learning photography, focusing on street artists. Worked for NPO before utilizing artist in residencies. Currently, creates art primarily in Fukushima's disaster areas and depopulated towns in Miyagi prefecture. Explores techniques like Cyanotype and Lumen print, capturing subjects directly without a camera.
Jury selection
I like these images without reading the text, they were intriguing and felt that they were made with a degree of chance. Though I had no idea what I was looking at though I was sure liquid was involved as splashes appeared on the paper. As they drew me in, I could not see a connection to the theme of Plant Life and thought perhaps the person who entered but not read the brief properly as the images were void of Plant Life.
It became apparent that these images were made in Hamadori in the Fukushima prefecture. One of the places directly affected by the tsunami in 2010 and the nuclear power plant disaster that followed. It then clicked in my mind and yes, the author of this work did in fact read and understand the perfectly and chose to interpret and submit a series of images made in relation to a nuclear power plant under the theme of Plant Life.
I like very much how Kazuki Takeshita used the waves as a direct way to relay using the chosen subject. This way of working starting from the mind to finished work is something I enjoy and often try to implore myself, bypassing words and in this case also bypassing a camera. Straight to the source directly onto light sensitive paper. By assisting images to be born and let them arrive takes a certain courage too. In the time where we all try and have control. To see the potentials in a lack of control is liberating and I think a way to making work that is not purely cerebral and this takes a certain courage and trust in chance and belief in your subject and method.
This work leaves information, traces, more than enough to convey what the author and subject chooses that otherwise maybe restricted with straight descriptive photography. It’s like Kazuki Takeshita understood that the subject can speak for itself and was assisting in enabling this.
Of course, this work strikes a chord with me as I too have been grappling over the years with stepping back, listening to the subject and helping the subject to speak for itself and take center stage. I think this way of working can often result in works beyond imagination and you must be fearless to make it.
I am happy to see this piece of work and your confidence to embrace chance in this way. The images as a result are great and, in my mind, even though abstract, they are seen as relevant and important documents of time and place.
Thank you for sending in your interpretation of Plant Life Kazuki Takeshita and I wish you well.
