Atsushi Fujiwara "Sakura River"
Zen Foto Gallery is pleased to present Atsushi Fujiwara’s photographic exhibition “Sakura River” from Friday, 27 September to Saturday, 19 October 2024. This is Atsushi Fujiwara’s second solo exhibition at Zen Foto Gallery since his exhibition “Poet Island” in 2015. The exhibition will feature 18 colour photographs selected from his newly published photo book under the same title. During the exhibition, a talk session will be held on Saturday, 28 September from 4 pm, welcoming photography critic Kenji Takazawa. A reception party will be held after the talk event at 5 pm on the same day. We are looking forward to your participation.
In the summer of 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, I was staying at a hotel in the northern Kanto region. It was right next to a river called Sakuragawa (literally, cherry blossom river).
“I have never been to the land of Hitachi, but I hear of a Sakura River there.”
— Excerpt from the Noh song “Sakuragawa” by Ki no Tsurayuki
— Atsushi Fujiwara
“This was a time when the whole world was struggling with the coronavirus pandemic. By chance, Fujiwara was staying near the Sakuragawa River for an extended period, and he intuitively decided to take photographs along the river. One day, he discovered that this place served as the setting for the Noh play “Sakuragawa”. Fujiwara, who had already established a connection with the Noh world through his work Semimaru, used this coincidence as a clue to conceive the overall concept of the work. The narrative of the Noh play “Sakuragawa” undoubtedly influenced Fujiwara’s perspective as he held the camera. [...] This world, where the sacred and the profane coexist, is as transient as the falling cherry blossoms. That is why it is worth photographing. It is the artist’s view of impermanence that makes Sakuragawa analogous to the world of Noh.“
— Kenji Takazawa, excerpted from his essay “Along the River Flowing Between Reality and Fiction”
