Naotatsu Kaku
“THE LAKE”
2021Grand Prize
ARTIST STATEMENT
THE LAKE
The lake is surrounded by mountains over 1,000 meters above sea level. I stayed in a room with a view of the lake for three months over winter, and I recorded the lake from the time it froze to the time it thawed.
When the wind blows, waves rise up like an ocean, and when it rains, fog comes swirling in. And during the coldest period of winter, the lake gradually freezes over. On nights the lake freezes, a special sound resounds through the place.
Before long, when the lake thaws, I feel a sensation of “it was once there and yet it is still definitely there”. I decided to surrender myself to go on just staring at the life (changes) of nature.
This work is both like a diary and like a photo album. I walked around the lake countless times, sometimes casting a stone or oaring a boat. The work is also a three-month wordless dialogue between the lake and myself. But there are no boundaries or distinctions here; everything is open to the viewer.
Single-channel video (25:52)
Selecting judge: Noi Sawaragi
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to more restrictions than ever on our freedom to gather and to move about. While experiences with the changing of the seasons and encounters with unknown people, which should be important for photography, have become scarce, new time divisions in the form of “waves” that indicate the state of infections and internal confrontations with the unknown self have surfaced. I, too, found myself choosing photographs that represented “the inland”, “freshwater (rivers and lakes)”, “the introverted” and “the domestic”. Among these, the most daring and dense things to emerge were unconventional time axes, unforeseen changes, and generative transformations occurring in the immediate distance.
PROFILE
Naotatsu Kaku
| 1990 | Born in Tokyo |
| 2016 | Graduated from the Fiction Course at the Film School of Tokyo |
| 2017 | Selected for an Honorable Mention Award at the 40th Canon New Cosmos of Photography |
| 2018 | Selected as a finalist at the 2018 Kyotographie KG+ Awards |
| 2019 | Selected for the 2019 Gunma Biennale for Young Artists |
Major exhibitions
| 2019 | A Neighbour in Prague, Koganecho AIR Exhibition |
| 2020 | Living Things Inside Living Things, Makii Masaru Fine Arts |
| 2021 | Minami Kara, Gallery Tochika, Ryurodo |
2021Grand Prize
