Akikami KANDA

"Wall Looking Intently"

hardcover
Pages: 72 / photos: 34
Size: 199×250×13mm / 560g /
Price: 3,000JPY
Release Date: August 2016

Web-site

Following a quiet indication of a person who walked the area in the past,
I hit a white wall; A wall that is so majestic and extraneous.
I stand on the wall, stare at the border, and I become to realize the
emergence of peculiar scenery that is created due a place called dam
that came into existence.

It started one summer, The summer which I spotted fractured pieces of
now-gone-residents’lives on the bottom of the water. In the steamy hot air
which rises underneath the blazing sun, the picture in front of my eyes
sways as if it is revealing the traces of the village that existed once
before. Seeing things re-emerging, from the bottom of the dark water to the
brighter surface, I feel a queer sensation: I sense the boundary as known
as the surface of the water, slowly vanishing and, instead a mirage that
recalls the memories of the past sways in front of my eyes.

I step firmly on the dried up lake shore, walk around the village that
once belonged there, and see the traces of the past.
Before I know, I was mesmerized by the water and the wall that create
this place.

/

Inside the thick concrete wall, a silent and endless world extends out.
There, the flow of time is felt somehow calm and unhurried. Tranquility is felt,
as if you are looking down inside the well, and unknown scraps ooze out
from the bottom of dim dark water.
It triggers and deepens my curiosity towards the space.

The abundant water wavers, and the surface is reflected intricately.
Every now and then, something that is kept quietly inside the water sways
out to the surface and sways away, just like drifting clouds in the sky.
The small fractures of incidents seem like they are happening at a space
somewhere that is liberated from gravity, or a stage that is lit up with
a contrast of brightness and darkness.

Nature and Human. As I am fascinated by the vividly contrasted visions
that are created by the two entities, my approach towards the mystical
elements of the space called dam proceeds.

(Excerpts from the author's foreword)

Akikami KANDA

"WALKING ON A MAP"

Pages: 120 / photos: 70
Size: 297x298x20mm / hardcover
Price: 3,704JPY
Release Date: June 2014

Web-site

Walking on a Map Northern Kanto

With the eye and sensibility obtained during my life in Northern Kanto, I have been looking for and taking pictures of the scene that shows something like a boundary connecting places.

When I stand still to look at a familiar place, the place reveals its change that I failed to recognize before, reminding me of the things that are gone yet whose presence I have taken for granted. In the passage of time which is different from that of the city, this unnoticed change occurred so quiet that it makes me feel as if I came to some place far away though it is my familiar place.

Scenes change as if they never changed. They become restless when I come too close, but from afar, they don’t seem to have any reality within, as if they were faraway places. Not too close yet not too afar, threading through a fine line between the two, I walk and walk. What is waiting for me is not the place that is particularly beautiful, nor is it the place that shows its deeply embedded history. Yet I walk, looking for the place that truly is the place where I should be. I walk, giving attention to the way a place turns into the scene before me, occasionally getting that incoherent scene superimposed on my memory of home. That way I leave my own footmarks behind.

(Excerpts from the author's foreword)