ABOUT
As a photographer, ambient composer, writer, and philosopher, Takahiro Mitsui(1991) has journeyed deeply across Japan, exploring the myths, history, and natural environments imbued in its lands. He is particularly fixated on "Kunitsukami" - the ancient Japanese faith - philosophically examining the human spirit born from the genius loci of places.
The artist's work is heavily influenced by the philosophical concepts of place and predicativity, originally introduced by Kitaro Nishida and further elaborated by subsequent thinkers, notably Tetsuji Yamamoto, the theories of Kukai, the founder of Shingon Esoteric Buddhism, and the ancient Shinto revival of the Edo period, which sought a return to the primordial Shinto before the advent of religion. Rejecting the tendency to absolutise the modern subject, he creates works from the perspective that human beings are subordinate to place.
He perceives the modern era as an "endless modernity" and asserts that the code deployed within it has a tendency to "define and symbolise everything, ultimately transcending and reducing it to a single absolute symbol." While this context may be historically significant in the Western world, referred to as the God, the universal, the world, or existence, Takahiro criticises it as a path leading only to "kyomu" - nothingness - from the perspective of the Japanese, who have faith in "Yaoyorozu no kami " - the countless gods - Turning this viewpoint towards Japan, which has undergone a half-hearted modernisation since the Meiji era, he continues to present works that examine environmental destruction issues in light of Japan's ancient beliefs.
In Japan, there is still a very strong fixed notion that photography captures the truth of the external world. However, he points out that since the era of Yasujiro Ozu, such a notion has been understood as a falsehood. Criticising masters of the Japanese photography world who proclaimed realism, such as Ken Domon, Takahiro highly values Taikichi Irie, who continued to create emotional works with deep respect, capturing the human psyche from the place of Nara. From this perspective, Takahiro creates photographic works, arguing that photography is always unrelated to external facts and that the internal facts, that is, the spirit of the person concerned, are of utmost importance.
During the process of creating these photographic works, he also creates musical compositions that express the non-verbal emotions he experienced. Although he has not received formal education in any of the artistic techniques he employs, having learned them independently, he has only recently begun to formally present his works in 2024 after about seven years of preparation.
PHOTOGRAPHIC WORKS
"Requiem For The Sacred Tree" - Capturing the once sacred trees standing in the mountains of Kumano, representing how the Shintoism Separation Order by the Meiji government severed the relationship between Japanese people and deities, which he sees as the root cause of modern Japan's loss of circulation.
"After Tsunami" - An aerial documentation of the reconstruction efforts in the Sanriku region after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, expressing skepticism that the much-touted "recovery" was more for the benefit of construction companies rather than the disaster victims themselves - a critique of the deception of "politics and concrete."
"The Aesthetic of Negative Space" - Captured in the area that birthed painter Tōhaku Hasegawa, Zen scholar Daisetsu Suzuki, and philosopher Kitaro Nishida, after the Noto Peninsula Earthquake on New Year's Day. The blossoming cherry trees in spring represented the artistic pinnacle exemplified by Hasegawa, while contemplating the loss of the Japanese aesthetic of "negative space" in the modern era.
"Late Autumn" - A work dedicated to the beloved Nara photographer, Taikichi Irie. In Nara and Kyoto, former capitals of Japan, the imperial court culture of admiring plum and cherry blossoms is well-known. Based on the distribution of vegetation, it is unlikely for an entire mountainside to be coloured by autumn leaves, but the sporadically coloured foliage evokes a sense of historical vicissitudes, brimming with emotional depth.
• “iwak-i” - A work set in the autumn of the Japan Sea side of Tohoku, which flourished during the Jomon period. The people who lived in this region remained independent for most of Japanese history, refusing to succumb to repeated conquests by the central authorities. Although the traces of the Arahabaki, the indigenous people of Japan, have now been forgotten, when witnessing the vitality of the autumn leaves that colour the landscape, one understands that their spirit still coexists with nature. The iconic Mount Iwaki in Tsugaru is derived from the old Ainu word "iwak-i," which means "a place to return to." It is a sense of nostalgia lost by the Japanese people since the modern era, and a remnant of the hearts of the indigenous people who had a culture that predated the Ainu.
MUSIC WORKS
・1st album "Nature Connectedness".