Hitomi Takahashi
“COLONY”
2009Excellence Award
ARTIST STATEMENT
COLONY
When I was born, our pet dog Piccolo always seemed to be nurturing me by licking my face.
The bigger my own body got, the stronger my urge became to peek inside the dim interior of the doghouse in the yard.
I'd imagine a forest springing up around me.
Inside the forest the light shines even stronger, and it creates the deepest of shadows.
Night and day, the animals would quietly lurk in the forest.
Once upon a time, someplace in Japan.
Colony is a world of excess.
An excess of centipedes, dogs, sparrows. An excess of excesses.
I think these things can be thought of as the true face of nature.
The air is moist and it's easy to breathe.
Entries form: Book, 279mm x 356mm, 56 pages, color photographic printing paper
Selecting judge: Kotaro Iizawa
By selecting her past self out of private videos and albums, she connects them to her present being, and tries to see through to her future. I sense a certain reality and desperation in the way that she has gropingly sewn together a sense of discomfort or perhaps displacement that she has with herself using her past, present, and future as a medium. The assemblage of the photographs is unique and somewhat difficult for viewers to understand, but it's a very high level of composition. One unfortunate aspect is how she is still satisfied to dwell on her own problems and hasn't connected it with a viewpoint encompassing society as a whole. I'm looking forward to watching her grow as an artist.
PROFILE
Hitomi Takahashi
| 1988 | Nov 20, Born in Ibaraki Prefecture |
| 2009 | Graduated with a major in photography from the Department of Photograph, Picture and Image, Art and Architecture School of Waseda University |
2009Excellence Award