Japanese photographer Takuchi Shimura lives in Paris. His house is located near the Louvre museum, but the photographer’s inspiration isn’t the heart of Paris with its lights and historical treasures, rather the suburbs of Paris, with their unique rhythm and laws. The suburbs are beautiful, but that beauty awakens the wild, the unrestrained, and the imagination. It opens up to the person who wants to see it.
Takuchi’s series of photographs called “Unconscious design” is currently being shown at NPAC (new experimental art center). The Japanese photographer doesn’t stage his real images portrayed from an aloof perspective. All photographs are “stolen” from reality and are placed in a frame. The photographer searches for his material and has respect towards it, as this reality has prompted his creation. The photographer walks in the suburbs and finds photos. The door, window, gate and a part of the wall tell about the disposition, customs and dreams of people living behind the doors. But they tell only about people who want to listen.
“There are no individuals in my photographs; there are only the traces of the presence of individuals. Who lives behind the doors and the gates? I leave that up to the viewer’s imagination. For example, as you look at the gate, you can predict that there are a couple of generations of people living in the home because the door leaves the impression of a silent testimony,” says Takuchi.
His works are not mere illustrative photos or reports, rather they are canvases created by a photo camera and built on very delicate shades and half tones. A gray door with an unnoticeable red line cutting across; a fragment of a door with a road sign on the corner; a window that closes the view as it meets with the wall – these are “taken” from surface of life and then built very carefully and philosophically. Pictures are not scenes, rather small snapshots of a greater life.
“Of course, I am Japanese and whether I like it or not, I look at the world through the eyes of the Japanese. Living and studying in Europe, I look at the lifestyle of the Europeans through the eyes of a representative of an Eastern nation. I don’t feel that, but my Parisian friends tell me that that is the case. In reality, nationality is not important; it is not the root of my identity, and it can’t be, because nationality is a feeling and can’t be a means of identification for the artist. Borders and nationalities are conditional,” says Takugi who met Armenian artists Ara Haytayan and Ashot Kirakosyan in Paris and, accepting their invitation, visited Yerevan for the second time.
The Japanese have an amazing characteristic – they never rush anywhere and that is why they are never late when they go somewhere. Time passes differently for them. The Japanese respect time and Takuchi Shimura of Paris stops time at the point that he considers beautiful. He is going to stay in Armenia for nearly a month and wishes to tour the villages of Armenia and take a series of photos. Walking the streets of Yerevan, he has noticed that almost all passers-by try to converse with him.
“I seem surprising to most people. But times are changing rapidly; ten years ago, many countries couldn’t even imagine that they would have a large flow of immigrants. Now foreigners are surprising neither in Japan nor in Europe. I think that that will be the same in Armenia soon,” says Takuchi.
He considers the main issue concerning the somewhat sad and indifferent society as a lack of communication.
“People rarely step outside of their twenty five square-meter apartments, and that can give birth to depression, especially when they don’t live in the heart of Paris. The whole world may seem sad to the person who doesn’t want to see beauty. He doesn’t see it often because he is materialistic. For example, in Paris, there are practically no books in the purses of female students, and the price for purses in Paris is a couple of hundred Euros. This is the saddest reality,” says Takuchi who is not rushing to express his opinion on Armenia because as all Japanese, he also doesn’t like to rush. He likes to observe, evaluate, choose a point of view, and present what he has done silently to the world that is spinning around rapidly, mixing and weaving cultures and cities.
The Armenian “adze” and the international “saw”
Ara Haytayan, coordinator of this exhibition, has noticed a very interesting approach in the art of Takuchi Shimura that Armenian creators in other countries often lack.
“There are few Armenians who are able to use the realities of foreign countries in their art to say what they have to say. When the artist is unable to find reconciliation between the national and the real, he becomes isolated and is enclosed in everything Armenian. In that case, the national becomes similar to a cave, from where it is very difficult to get out,” says Haytayan, who is certain that there are aesthetics that are genetically transferred to each artist and is something that wants to develop.
“Art isn’t just born. The environment, movement, contacts, conflicts, contradictory opinions – these all have to be present so that art may develop. New viewpoints must come into light in order to have a harmonious, tolerant environment. We are currently living in a blockade, enclosed in our customs,” says Haytayan. Artist Kirakosyan is certain that it all starts with us.
“Each time Armenians see my Russian passport at the Armenian border and my car with its Georgian license plate, they ask me why I came to Armenia. I think that instead of being amazed at why others come to Armenia, rather we should open our doors and tell them to come. Isolation has turned into a virus that has stuck with our people. We are “cooking” in our reality and don’t want to see what’s new; that stands in the way. We like the adze very much. I don’t know if other people even use that tool or not. The adze is strictly an Armenian tool and symbol that must “always move towards us”, while the saw can be considered an international tool because you have the “towards us” and the “towards you” principles. Foreigners living in Armenia, as a rule, don’t like the adze because it is a one-way tool.”
The figurative adze is often present in Armenian art and mentality. The handprint of the artist or the points for looking at the world may have the national stamp, but the horizons have to be open and the material must be multifaceted. The Japanese photographer wants to find new material in Armenian reality, and the reality portrayed through the eyes of a foreigner may remind us that art starts with and is enriched by discourse.