Midori Mitamura
29 Jan - 14 Mar 2009
MIDORI MITAMURA
January 29 - March 14, 2009
INFINITE POSSIBILITIES OF MEMORY AND RECORD
MIDORI MITAMURA
As long as we are alive, neither “permanence” nor “moment” can exist.
Every passing second flies off into the past.
No sooner do we feel “just now”, that very moment has already passed, become history.
We continually lose memories throughout our lives.
On the other hand, our present life actually comprises memories.
Our memories let us realize how we are or how we feel now in relation to our past.
After one hundred years have passed, all of our actual memories will have vanished completely from the face of the earth.
Only various, faded records will remain.
At that moment, people living in the future will assemble those fragments of records we shed daily, and they will perchance concoct many imagined stories of our lives based on uncertain realities.
Those records depend entirely upon the imagination, inferences and conclusions drawn by future minds.
This means that the image of human life is constructed merely from personal memories.
One of the salient tools for making a record of something is photography.
Why do we want to take a picture?
From the early days of its origin, photography existed as a tool to leave “records” and “memories” in our everyday life, before it became Art.
We are simply unable to refrain from changing and stop shedding masses of memories at every moment.
Taking a picture is definitely the most efficient action in order to log those memories we don't want to lose.
We know potentially that “permanence” doesn’t exist anywhere on earth.
It could allow us to try to freeze a merciless stream of time only for an instant.
Instead, when we re-encounter a photo after a long hiatus, we often find something new or different from before in that fixed image, although nothing changed in the recorded fact. Because looking into the past is facing the present, not looking back at our life.
When I look at photographs, I am always concerned that the reflected image in any photo is just a memory of the photographer.
I am usually attracted to photographer’s intention and point of view, more than to the object itself recorded in the photograph.
Furthermore, it is very interesting for me to re-create an old photo and make it into a new work, as if I am taking a new picture so as to move toward the reconstructed world.
Released from my memories and consideration, it leads me to a seemingly infinite number new images and styles.
They liberate my inspiration completely to create new fictional material.
January 29 - March 14, 2009
INFINITE POSSIBILITIES OF MEMORY AND RECORD
MIDORI MITAMURA
As long as we are alive, neither “permanence” nor “moment” can exist.
Every passing second flies off into the past.
No sooner do we feel “just now”, that very moment has already passed, become history.
We continually lose memories throughout our lives.
On the other hand, our present life actually comprises memories.
Our memories let us realize how we are or how we feel now in relation to our past.
After one hundred years have passed, all of our actual memories will have vanished completely from the face of the earth.
Only various, faded records will remain.
At that moment, people living in the future will assemble those fragments of records we shed daily, and they will perchance concoct many imagined stories of our lives based on uncertain realities.
Those records depend entirely upon the imagination, inferences and conclusions drawn by future minds.
This means that the image of human life is constructed merely from personal memories.
One of the salient tools for making a record of something is photography.
Why do we want to take a picture?
From the early days of its origin, photography existed as a tool to leave “records” and “memories” in our everyday life, before it became Art.
We are simply unable to refrain from changing and stop shedding masses of memories at every moment.
Taking a picture is definitely the most efficient action in order to log those memories we don't want to lose.
We know potentially that “permanence” doesn’t exist anywhere on earth.
It could allow us to try to freeze a merciless stream of time only for an instant.
Instead, when we re-encounter a photo after a long hiatus, we often find something new or different from before in that fixed image, although nothing changed in the recorded fact. Because looking into the past is facing the present, not looking back at our life.
When I look at photographs, I am always concerned that the reflected image in any photo is just a memory of the photographer.
I am usually attracted to photographer’s intention and point of view, more than to the object itself recorded in the photograph.
Furthermore, it is very interesting for me to re-create an old photo and make it into a new work, as if I am taking a new picture so as to move toward the reconstructed world.
Released from my memories and consideration, it leads me to a seemingly infinite number new images and styles.
They liberate my inspiration completely to create new fictional material.