Emi Nakata received the Grand Prize in the 7th “1_WALL” Photography Competition for “Along with the beautiful pace,” a work born from her thoughts concerning death and the continuation of other people’s lives thereafter, based on the experience of losing her mother 14 years before. Her entry was a combination of photographs relating to her family, to possessions left behind by her mother, and to everyday life living with her widowed father. One judge commented that Nakata had already demonstrated her artistic power at the portfolio stage, but during the group exhibition she had boldly sought to show something new and different. Another praised the high level of perfection of her works, remarking that Nakata is an artist with a strong will.
For this solo exhibition, Nakata will put herself all the more deeply into her works. She will photograph, at home, the clothes and other items left by her mother, and into each photo she will infuse the corresponding memories of her mother. She will also photograph herself wearing her mother’s belongings, occasionally having her father do the shooting. In taking photographs, one and then another, all the while recollecting about her mother, she will measure the distance between herself and her father, and little by little shorten that distance. Nakata also thinks of her own body as one more thing her mother left behind. By photographing that body together with her father, she faces her mother’s death with strength. “Yosuga,” the exhibition title, refers to something one relies on, physically and mentally. We invite visitors to come and see the “something” that Emi Nakata discovered.