Yajima’s photographs feature landscapes and people as their subjects. They seem deceptively placid, his photographs, but in fact have a kind of fearsomeness about them that is capable of causing confusion in the viewer. It is the “true nature of turmoil” showing itself, and as he relentlessly pursues the nature of the uncertainty of our existence, he thrusts that turmoil at us with a calm and composed hand. In what way am “I” an accumulation of “others”? Yajima’s photographs are an absent mirror. A mirror in which distortion is continuously reflected.

SHIGEO GOTO (Editor / Professor of Kyoto University of Art and Design)

It was the first time that, as a young child, I was attending a funeral service when I vaguely became conscious of the fact that whenever I looked at a human face, I reflexively tried to decipher the personality and the mood of the person I was looking at. The face of the deceased was completely still. Although I understood that the face was never going to move again no matter how much time passed, I remember standing there looking at it and feeling gripped by an intense anxiety.

Can we see something more in the things we see than we think we see? This question is the principal theme running through all my projects. In the series “Portrait,” my approach to this theme is extremely simple. I have an idea that reactions that are not capable of being consciously manipulated are associated in some way to the essential nature of the act of seeing.

Yosuke Yajima

Born 1981, based in Tokyo. Finalist at the 1st 1_WALL photography competition in 2009 and recipient of the Jury Prize at Tokyo Frontline Photo Award 2013. Solo exhibitions include “A place in the cliff” (2011, TAP Gallery, Tokyo), and group shows, “SPACE CADET Actual Exhibition” (2012,　2013, Turner Gallery, Tokyo) and “THE EXPOSED #6” (2011, Omotesando Hills, Tokyo). With growing international recognition, he is represented on the online gallery tinyvices.com, and has been shortlisted for the 2013 Fotobook Dummy Award.

PORTRAIT
Yosuke Yajima

Date : 30 August, 2013 - 23 September, 2013
Time : Weekday 11:00 - 20:00 / Saturdays and Holidays 11:00 - 18:30
Closed : Sundays and Mondays (Except for 2013.9.16, 2013.9.23)
Entrance Fee ：500yen for students / 800 yen for over 18 (Gallery916 & 916small)