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Asia

Tatsuki Masaru
KAKERA, Bullet Train, unknown date (photographed in Akita, September, 2016)

Masaru Tatsuki traveled throughout Japan to visit museums holding KAKERA (translates fragments) of Jomon Period potteries –Japan’s pre-history 2,300-15,000 years ago. Small and fragile, the kakera were donated by farmers who had found them in their fields, or by archeologists, and then wrapped in newspapers and stored away. Today they sit quietly on the shelves of museums, unknown to people. Tatsuki pulled the kakera out to photograph them with the wrapping newspaper backdrop, giving light to the neglected objects. Spanning from the 1940s to the 1980s, the wrapping newspapers record the time when the kakera were found and archived. In Loving God 1978 6/1, the 1976 newspaper depicts depicting Brazilians worshipping non-Catholic Japanese God. Tatsuki’s photographs unfold a part of the history of modern Japan while engaging broader discussion around the conservation and restitution of artifacts and cultural heritage.

Tatsuki Masaru  became an independent photographer in the late 1990s after studying under Kyoji Takahashi, photographer mainly familiar to Japanese audiences for his commercial and fashion photography but also an independent image-maker producing photos, films and installations. Exploring folkloric myths and the reality of people’s life in Japan, each of Tatsuki’s photography series is the result of a long-term research and engagement with his subject matter. As such since 2006, Tatsuki Masaru has been visiting the Tohoku Region regularly, well before the 2011 earthquake devastated the region.