FINDING TIME IN KAMAISHI → FINDING TIME FROM KAMAISHI (Visual Studies edition)
What can photos do in landscapes that are recovering? This photomedia installation presents a glimpse of an ongoing visual conversation with Kamaishi city (Japan) since 2019: an unprecedented period which included a rugby world cup, the global COVID-19 pandemic, a decade’s commemoration of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, a much-delayed summer Olympics, and then nothing of note except normality. Yet it is normality where things get interesting.

The many images in this work were made using a strategy called ‘rephotography’ (returning to the same place at a different time). While any number of the images appear at first to track changes over time, looking longer signals thoughts about how a relationship with a place can change from that of getting around to that a map of care, where any image can become an entrypoint into a dense network of time. Typically, this work is only shown in Kamaishi city on an annual basis (2022, 2023, 2024) where residents can keep an eye on how it’s going.

For the visual studies exhibition, however, a version (FINDING TIME FROM KAMAISHI) will be presented for the first time outside of Japan. While it can never speak on Kamaishi’s behalf, the work at least suggests a thousand small reasons to visit. A virtual version of PT 3 of Finding Time in Kamaishi can be seen here: https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=7AdTwVzgz2z