18 January 2024
The Daguerreotype at the End of Our World
Photographer Arai Takashi was born in the late 1970s in the Japan of the Cold War. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, followed by the Fukushima nuclear accident, was the first moment when his worst fears seemed to come true after Japan retreated into the amnesia of the bubble and post-bubble economy. Since he started to make frequent visits to Fukushima, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and other nuclear sites in Japan and the US, he has been considering the complex disparities between the different levels of narrative told by individuals, communities, and nations. In this talk, moderated by Simon Baker (Director of MEP: Maison Européenne de la Photographie and former Senior Curator, International Art at Tate), Arai discussed his interdisciplinary approach to nuclear issues utilising the uncertainty of the daguerreotype, one of the earliest photographic techniques, and the instability and fragility of his body and mind as an individual artist.
