Japanese artist Keijiro Kai immerses himself in traditional fighting festivals around the world, exploring the origins of the sport (for example, in series such as "Shrove Tuesday" and "Opens and Stands Up") and essential questions about human culture and life. In recent years, Kai has focused on festivals in Japan.
The photographs in "Ashes to Ashes" were taken in 2018 and 2023 and depict the Toba Fire Festival, which has been held at the Toba Shimmeisha Shrine in Nishio, Aichi for more than 1200 years. Two huge pillar-like torches are lit and participants, divided into two teams, jump in and out of the fire to retrieve sacred trees and ropes.
Kai shows these scenes up close, as if he were part of the teams. His spectacular photographs capture the heat of the fire, the thick smoke, the exhaustion, the relief, the danger, the primordial chaos that unfolds and transforms the festival into a temporary manifestation of another world.

“Fire never grows old or mossy – it is always old, new, and perpetual. For 1200 years the same fire has emerged every year and raged through this town. The participants are deressed in the traditional costumes passed down from their ancestors, crafted from narrow nobori flags – they unknowingly establish a connection with the past as they immerse themslves in a fire identical to that witnessed 1200 years ago.”
― from Keijiro Kai’s afterword

-Book Size
308 × 259 mm
-Pages
52 pages, 37 images
-Binding
Softcover
-Publication Year
2025
-Language
English, Japanese
-Limited Edition
800
-ISBN
978-4-910244-43-3

Artist Profile

Keijiro KAI

Born in Fukuoka in 1974, Kai graduated from the College of Science and Technology of Nihon University with a specialization in Oceanic Architecture and Engineering in 1997, and from the Tokyo College of Photography in 2002. He is currently an adjunct professor at the Tokyo College of Photography.

Kai's photographs take the viewer into the crowds of traditional fighting or sporting rituals all around the world that predate our modern concept of “sport”. By taking a close look at human interaction in these traditional settings, Kai’s photographs offer us an insight into the very essence of human life. He has participated in group exhibitions at the Daegu Photo Biennale (South Korea, 2016), Taipei Photo (Taiwan, 2018), the Noorderlicht International Photography Festival (Netherlands, 2019), and the T3 Photo Festival Tokyo (Japan, 2024) and has held numerous solo exhibitions in Japan. His solo exhibition, "Down to the Bone", is scheduled to be held at the Kyotographie Kyoto International Photography Festival in 2025.

His photobook publications include “Shrove Tuesday” (Totem Pole Photo Gallery, 2013), “Wounded Bears” (Totem Pole Photo Gallery, 2016), “Down to the Bone” (Shinjuku Shobo, 2020), and “Clothed in Sunny Finery” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2023). He won the 28th Society of Photography Award for “Wounded Bears” and “Down to the Bone” in 2016; the 20th Sagamihara Photography Award for his book “Down to the Bone” in 2020; and the 45th Nobuo Ina Award for his exhibition “Down to the Bone” at the Nikon Salon in 2021.

Gallery Exhibitions