BURN AFTER SEEING by Toshiya Murakoshi

“At dusk, small fire sparks drew a soft line on the azure-blue sky, and they were so close they seemed like fireflies. And the flames only sounded during the moments when they were blown by a strong wind, scattering sparks all around.

These sparks then disappeared as if they were being drawn into the sky, which was deepening into a blue-black. Following these with my eyes, I pondered where the lights were going.

The color of the sky further deepened, and I strained my eyes carefully to the tiny sparks emerging. They were blown away, stirred up, and put out by the wind. As I looked at them over and over again, the night fell completely. My skin grew cold, and, at that moment, I gradually recognised a feeling of loss similar to that when I once experienced something very important.

There were no signs of fire any more on the road through the rice fields. The wind got colder and colder. Stars were shining in the colorless night sky.”

— Toshiya Murakoshi

About Toshiya Murakoshi

Toshiya Murakoshi lives and works in Tokyo. He chose his hometown as a photographic subject since 2006. He is working on this series as if tracing the memory of a place where he was present. This series is included in five books published since 2008, and also has been exhibited at TAP, an independent gallery of which he is a member. The 15 works for this exhibition were created at the time when he experienced his grandmother’s death in 2009; the incident was a trigger that prompted an awareness of the relationship between the action of taking photographs of his parents’ house and the memory of his family. These works are follow Murakoshi’s until and unless (published in 2010）and calendula（published in 2011). Murakoshi began working on this series at greater pace following the Great East Japan Earthquake. He also exhibits past work as well as this series in parallel. His work turns on various time axes that cannot be separated from each other.