Ai TAKAHASHI / photographer
1980 Born in Tokyo, Japan
Ai Takahashi lives and works in Japan. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Tama Art University in Tokyo and the Master of Fine Arts degree in Inter Media Art from Tokyo National
University of Fine Arts in 2010. Recently, Takahashi received prestigious Japanese emerging artist grant from Pola Art Foundation, 2012 Overseas Study by Young Artists Fellowship to support her
project to live and photograph in the United States of America. Takahashi's work is show in Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia and the United States of America and her work is in the permanent collection at
the Kuma Museum in Japan.
Artist Statement
Landscapes are at once events of the earth and the stage on which our human lives evolve to become our histories. As the layers of our lives accumulate, just like the geological beds of the earth, our existence becomes rooted in its layers.
Rural agrarian life (inaka) has long stood in juxtaposition to an urban existence, to a world overflowing with information. But now the idea of inaka as “an ordinary farming community,” struggles to sustain itself. In my work I seek out the voices of people living in such communities. While tangible, their voices are not to be found in textbooks or the news media. Still, collectively these modest voices represent the grounded history of these small farming communities.
Life in these rural villages, rooted in the community members’ sense of responsibility for place, provides an abundance that I find prescient. Inherent in village life is gentleness and tranquility, a severity and awe, a pantheistic prayer to god as the whole of creation. On my travels I search for the roots of Japaneseness through an exploration of human agency and disappearing cultural traditions.
2012.1/Ai Takahashi
風景とは、大地の出来事であり、その出来事の上に人の営みから形成したものが歴史として積み重なっていく。大地に地層があるように、人の営みにも層があり、今がある。
情報に溢れた都市の対称として在る「田舎」は、「普通の農村」でありながら、それを維持することの困難さが現実にある。私は撮影を行うためには村の人の声を必要としてきた。教科書やメディアには出てこないささやかな声の中に、村の確固たる歴史があるだろう。
山村の生活がもつ豊かなもの、土地の責任を持って暮らす人々の姿こそ、尊い姿だと思っている。やさしさと静けさ、厳しさと怖さがあり、森羅万象 を神とした祈りがある。旅をしながら人の生業と消えつつある日本の文化を探ろうとしている。今の日本の根底になにがあるのかを知るために私は旅を続けている。