ARAI Takashi

Profile

Born in 1978 in Kanagawa, Japan. Lives and works in Kanagawa, Japan.
While searching for the origins of photography, Arai came to know the daguerreotype, and after much trial and error, he mastered the technique. He defines daguerreotype as "micro-monuments" that transcend time and space and vividly convey to the viewer sensations and memories of others. In recent years, Arai has actively been engaged in interdisciplinary projects: such as filmmaking, writing, and collaborative research, at international venues.

Recent exhibitions:
2022 "Squaring the Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st century," Royal Photographic Society, Bristol, U.K.
2021 "The world began without the human race and it will end without it," National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei
2020 "Yokohama Triennale 2020 'Afterglow'," Yokohama Museum of Art
2020 "1000 Days / 1000 Mirrors," Purdy Hicks Gallery, London
2019 "Tomorrow's History," Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe

Recent Awards:
2018 "The 72nd Salerno International Film Festival: Category Prize"
2016 "The 41st Kimura Ihei Award," The Asahi Shimbun Company and Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc.
2014 "The Source-Cord Prize (SOLAS Prize)," Source and the Cord prize

About works / performance

Arai plans to produce a series of daguerreotypes on the theme of "Archaeology of the Future" at Onkalo, the final repository in Finland where high-level radioactive waste is stored. Onkalo must be fully protected from human and animal access and environmental exposure for 100,000 years until the nuclear waste becomes harmless. He hopes to study this unthinkable monument of the 100,000 years through the prism of the history of the anthropomorphic stone monuments kept by the Saami people, which were once invisible to the Western world and modern eyes. His ultimate goal is to break out of modernity's temporal and spatial perspectives and search for a new language that bridges the present and future world 100,000 years from now.