Teppei Sako
“ Made of Stone ”
2015Grand Prize
ARTIST STATEMENT
Made of Stone
Imagine you are walking down a street when you discover something. You let out a short “ah” and immediately click the shutter almost without thinking. I took snapshot techniques like these, where you cut out an instant of a subject’s movement or a situation you find yourself in, and applied them to video, in which there is time for a beginning and an end. In this way, the short “oh” of a photo’s decisive moment is extended into the long “ahhhh” of a video, exposing the natural, defenseless state of the subject.
Entries form: One video work (17:29)
Selecting judge: Hiraki Sawa
Although the video is somewhat long, at over 17 minutes, I couldn't stop watching it over and over again. The composition is well done, despite the snapshot-like, hand-held recording style. Each clip was recorded continuously for three to five minutes without the subjects being aware of the photographer — as if the photographer melded into the street environment — which creates an added dimension by prolonging that decisive instant of a photograph the artist aims for. Stretching time and adding sound to photographs brings out more vitality from the people and places captured in the works. I also thoroughly enjoyed the sense of strength in the video, which, as a format, is an extension of the photograph.
PROFILE
Teppei Sako
Born in Osaka Prefecture in 1988, Teppei Sako lives and works in Kanagawa Prefecture. He completed a Master's Program at the Graduate School of Art, Kyoto Seika University in 2014.
By taking the techniques of snapshot photography, which cut out moments of time, and repurposing them to video, Sako attempts to liberate the subject and the viewer from institutionalized “decisive moments”. He does this with video works that purposefully elongate the instantaneousness of snapshots and with series of snapshots that fold multiple moments into a single photo.
Some of his major exhibitions include the solo exhibition Poor Video, Anytime God (Sprout Curation, Tokyo, 2021), New Photographic Objects (The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, 2020), and All Along The Watchtower (Yebisu Art Labo, Aichi, 2019).
Teppei Sako won the Grand Prize at the 38th New Cosmos of Photography in 2015.
2015Grand Prize
