At
the heart of Japanese photographer Akiko Takizawa’s work lies
feelings of dislocation, displacement and isolation. Her black and
white photographs, unsettling yet peaceful, are imbued with a sense
of loss and longing while retaining that vital glimmer of hope. Dim shafts of light creep into dusty, shadow-shrouded interiors or softly illuminate barren landscapes. The images seem suspended between a dreamlike and wakeful state, teetering at
the threshold of consciousness. The line between sleep and death,
death and life is tantalisingly blurred.
Her
most recent exhibition, Over the Parched Field, on display
at Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, London from 18 January to 1 March, showcases a selection of collotype
prints of Takizawa's work from the last six years, photographs she
describes as "semi-autobiographical". Taken at the shrines of
Osorezan (Fear Mountain) and Goshogawara in
county Aomori in the north of Japan, they depict
holy places that were created to memorialise
and heal the spirits of children who have passed away. Stone statues
adorn the volcanic landscape, protecting the souls of the
deceased, while ‘bridal’ shrines are draped with mementoes, left
by parents for their children when they come of age. Takizawa
describes it as a place of calm that heightened her sense of
solitude.
Loss
is obviously a central theme in her work – both personal and
the loss of others – although the pictures she takes are very much
for her. “I take photographs for my own sake,” remarks Takizawa.
“In one way I’m documenting what I see but what appears [in my
pictures] has a more dreamlike quality. Sometimes it feels like it’s
not completely up to me what appears in the photographs. But I feel a
need to communicate what I see.”
Takizawa
also says she uses her photography to communicate with
relatives who are no longer alive. “I feel that
my camera acts as an antenna to receive signals carrying urgent
messages from the lost lives and objects that fill the air around
us.” She adds: “We think
of time as a single line but people talk about there being another
time, and that concept interests me. I feel a sense of déja-vu,
though not necessarily having lived a past life. Maybe living and
dying are on the same line. When I look at
photographs of dead people I almost feel that their lives are
continuing within the photographs.”
Takizawa describes her work as the embodiment of feeling like a stranger in her own country,
and indeed she admits that it was not until she left Japan that she could begin to reflect upon
her complex relationship with her background. This distance allowed
her to begin to make sense of the photographs she took there. “I
had to physically remove myself from Japan in order to work on [the
photographs,]” she confesses. “Even though I love Japan, I feel I
don’t fit in, although I always want to photograph my country.”
Gemma Padley is the Features Editor at Amateur Photographer Magazine and is currently studying a Masters in the History of Art with Photography
at Birkbeck University.
