IBASHO is proud to present a solo exhibition of Mikiko Hara (1967, Toyama Prefecture), a renowned Japanese contemporary photographer, known for her unique snapshot works in colour.
Most of Hara’s photographs capture fleeting moments: figures, landscapes and material things that emerge and disappear before her as she navigates daily life.
“There is no set theme; I’m not trying to communicate a particular message. Instead I gamble on serendipity. I hope each snapshot will stir some fragment of memory within every viewer, arousing complex feelings and emotions that can’t be easily put into words.”
While studiying art history and theory at Keio University in Tokyo, Hara happened to pick up photography when she inherited her father’s old camera. She subsequently studied at the Tokyo College of Photography. Influenced by the American master of street photography, Garry Winogrand, Hara built up her photographic experience by emerging herself into the streets, which felt demanding to her, both physically and mentally. She found it nearly impossible to capture everything perfectly in one frame due to the constant motion of life in the streets. After a friend gave her a German square-format camera from the 1930s, with a difficult to use viewfinder, she learned to take photographs without even looking in the viewfinder, which gave a totally new view on her work. This has since been her ‘modus operandi’, allowing the camera to catch unexpected moments in her personal surroundings, and she broadened her subjects.
Hara’s works are timeless and create a personal bond between her subjects and the viewers, a feeling of familiarity. All her works are in a square-format and are chromogenic prints.
Although the works on display at IBASHO are from different series that Hara made, the selection of the works from 1996 to 2014 together are to be regarded as an entirely new body of work: ‘The Wind Cannot Be Named’.
Hara’s works are in the collections of Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, J. Paul Getty Museum, Fotomuseum Winterthur, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, among others.
Due to the current circumstances and regulations regarding COVID-19 we will not be able to open the exhibition with a festive vernissage on 10 September. Instead, IBASHO will open the exhibition by publishing a video on Hara’s exhibition on our website and we will welcome our visitors with a festive drink in the first weekend of the exhibition 10 - 13 September during the opening hours from 14:00 - 18:00.
