Keizo Katajima "USSR 1991"

Osaka Nikon Salon

This event has ended.

The exhibition features photographs taken intermittently during the artist's 150 day stay in the Soviet Union when it collapsed in 1991. When the artist first visited the country, he had no idea that it would collapse a few months later. He was extremely surprised by the sudden collapse of the country known as the gulag archipelago where over 20 million people were purged, family members frequently betrayed one another, over 500 nuclear experiments carried out above ground, and where the language, religion and traditions of over 120 minority races were banned.
President Yeltsin had no difficulty in deciding to take the nation on the path towards a free market economy. In contrast to the many who talked of the rise of an independent Russia in the future, the older generation lived and died continually being loyal to a Soviet Union to which they dedicated much of their lives.
While taking photos of various people, the artist came to believe that "we cannot forget that the Soviet Union existed for 73 years". Compared to TV or the internet, photography is already being considered a 'slow medium'. The artist focuses on this 'slowness' by presenting it as a medium based on the substance of memory, which rebels against the easily-dismissed spectacles of TV and the internet.
Photography may signify things that cannot be erased and forgotten, or else disrupt the 'now' by suddenly coming back to show us the past. The artist believes that there is a hidden possibility in showing photographs of the former Soviet Union, 15 years since its collapse.