The first time I picked up a camera was on a school trip in elementary school.
A toy camera really, with just an aperture.
We visited Hakodate, but I can barely remember what I photographed.
Only two of the pictures could be properly printed.
Just those two pictures of the Hakodate Harbor, that’s all the photographs from my school trip.
I had just started middle school when I first held a real camera.
It was supposed to be shared by the whole family, but it kind of became just mine.
I bought the cheapest black and white film and shot the smiles of my classmates.
I also photographed cats and dogs and other animals, as well as non-descript landscapes.
After I started high school, I abandoned my camera and just had fun.
I wasn’t interested in recording things, and just enjoyed living in the moment.
This didn’t change when I finished high school and moved to Tokyo.
Even when I started painting in university, it remained the same.
Every day was so much fun, I didn’t even think about recording the moments.
When I graduated university, and started to think that I was going to keep painting.
When I moved by myself to Germany, and felt kind of lonely.
When I felt like I had become all alone.
I had that old familiar camera in my hands again.
That camera I got in middle school, I had it in my hands again.
Thinking back to my university days, wasn’t I taking photographs when I traveled on my own?
Being alone is what makes me pick up my camera.
Gazing up at the ceiling of my attic room in Germany, I felt like it kind of made sense.
Since then, all the days that passed started to feel precious.
I photographed the studio where I painted.
I photographed the scenes that I would pass by.
I’d use a large camera; I’d use a small camera.
The act of photographing had become incredibly fun.
Luckily, that joy still continues today.
But I no longer use large cameras.
I always shoot casually with a compact digital camera or a smartphone.
I’m not interested in the material qualities of photographs themselves.
Looking through the finder and framing what I see in front of me.
Trusting my own aesthetic sense and choosing my subjects.
I feel like maybe, there might be something more important than color and light.
For me, the act of photographing.
It’s training to make sure my own sensibilities don't get rusty.
It might be a workshop to rehydrate my sensibilities.
Painting a picture or creating a sculpture.
Embarking on a trip or the act of writing.
Things that surround me and things that I surround.
What I feel towards something, and expressing that in a different form.
All the phenomena relating to me are all interconnected in a supportive way.
All those intertwined connections form a circle that never ends.
That circle exists, never to be broken, and keeps on slowly turning.
Exhibition statement for Yoshitomo Nara – Will the Circle Be Unbroken
Daikanyama Hillside Plaza, 2017
(Translation by Chisato Uno)