ARAI, Takashi

E-mail:Website:info@TakashiArai.com

TakashiArai.com© Anton Orlov 2015

SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Takashi Arai (1978-) is a Kawasaki / Berlin-based visual artist, photographer, and filmmaker.
Arai first encountered photography while he was a university student of biology. To trace
photography to its origins, he encountered daguerreotype, and after much trial and error, mastered
the complex technique. Arai does not see daguerreotype as a nostalgic reproduction of a classicalmethod. Instead, he has made it his medium, finding it a reliable device for storing memory that is
far better for recording and transmitting interactions with his subjects than modern photography.
Since the beginning in 2010, when he first became interested in nuclear issues, Arai has used thedaguerreotype technique to create individual records—micro-monuments— touch upon thefragmented reality of events in the past. His encounters with surviving crew members, and thesalvaged hull, of the fallout-contaminated Daigo Fukuryūmaru fishing boat led him to photographthe deeply interconnected subjects of Fukushima, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
His major projects include Here and There - Tomorrow's History: documentary-style daguerreotypes
created in Fukushima after the triple disasters in 2011, Exposed in a Hundred Suns: the series ofhistorical monuments in the Atomic Age, Tomorrow's History: teenager's portraits and interviews
collected in historically stigmatized cities, and Daily Daguerreotype Project among others.
Arai's work has appeared in numerous exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mori Art
Museum, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Modern Museum of Art, Tokyo, among other international
venues.
In 2016, Arai received the 41st Kimura Ihei Award for his first monograph, "MONUMENTS" (PGI,2015). His recent short film, "Oshira Kagami (The Mirror of the Oshira Deity)," won the categoryprize at the 72nd Salerno International Film Festival in 2018.
Arai's works are held in the Smithsonian Institution collections, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, theNational Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, and Musée Guimet, among others.
Since 2017, Arai has been actively working as a researcher for interdisciplinary studies, such as"Interdisciplinary Studies of Radiation Effects on the Everyday Life of Victims" (National Museum ofEthnology) and "Anima Philosophica: Nature, Disaster, and Animism in Japan" (Institute for
Research in Humanities, Kyoto University).

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EDUCATION- Tokyo College of Photography, Yokohama
Area of Specialization: Photographic Art
Enrolled: April 2002 to March 2004 | Graduate Date: March 2004
- International Christian University, Tokyo
Area of Specialization: Biology
Enrolled: April 1998 to November 2001

TEACHING / RESEARCHING POSITIONS
2019-present
2019-present
2017-20192014-2017

Researcher at Tono Culture Research Center, Tono
Guest researcher at Anima Philosophica, Institute for Research in Humanities,Kyoto University
Affiliated researcher at National Museum of Ethnology (MINPAKU), Osaka
Lecturer at Wako University, Tokyo

2012-20142010-20112009-2013

Lecturer at Nippon Photography Institute, Tokyo
Lecturer at Tokyo Collage of Photography
Lecturer at Kyoto University of Art and Design, Kyoto

AWARDS
2019
2018
2017

The Tono Educational and Cultural Special AwardThe 72nd Salerno International Film Festival: Category Prize for the short film “Oshira Kagami”
The 66th Yokohama Cultural Awards: Incentive Prize

2017
2016
2016
2016
2014

The 46th Kawasaki City Cultural Awards: Azalea Prize
The 41st Kimura Ihei Award, Japan.
Photographic Society of Japan Awards: Newcomer's Award
65th Future Prize of Kanagawa Cultural AwardFirst Prize, The Source-Cord Prize, UK.

2013

First Prize, Image Object Exhibit, The Center for Alternative Photography, NYC.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art- The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston- Musée Guimet- Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo- The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography- Musée de l'Elysée- MAST Foundation- The Peabody Essex Museum- Musée Français de la Photographie- Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art- The Kawasaki City Museum- Musée Adrien Mentienne, Bry sur MarneMAJOR SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2020- 1000 Days / 1000 Mirrors, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London.
2019- Imago, PGI, Tokyo.

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- Tomorrow’s History, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Germany.
2017- Tomorrow’s History, Gallery Off Grid, Fukushima.
- Cent Soleils, Galerie Camera Obscura, Mois de la Photo 2017, Paris.
- Bright was the Morning, Yokohama Civic Galley Azamino, Yokohama.
2016- MONUMENTS: 41th Kimura Ihei Award Exhibition , Konica Minolta Plaza, Tokyo.
2015- The call of Tono, Timeless Gallery, Beijing.
- Dragon’s Scales - Our Monuments for the Atomic Age, Tokyo Metropolitan Daigo Fukuryu Maru
Exhibition Hall, Tokyo.
2014- Silverplated, Artpace San Antonio, TX.
- EXPOSED in a Hundred Suns, Photo Gallery International, Tokyo.
2013- D-type Story, Timeless Gallery, Beijing.
- Exposed in a Hundred Suns, Amagasaki Cultural Center, Hyogo. Sponsor: Amagasaki Cultural Center- Flowers in Equinoctials, Kurenbo, Tokyo. Sponsor: Chohouin Buddhist Temple- Here and There - Ashita no Shima (Tomorrow’s Islands), Meijokan Gallery, Minamisoma, Fukushima.
Sponsor: Minamisoma City- Expose 2012: Exposed in a Hundred Suns, Ken, Tokyo. Sponsor: Awazu Design Room2012
- Eyes of Fukushima - Mirrors Half Asleep - Takashi Arai Contemporary Daguerreotypes, Maruki Museum(The Maruki Gallery for the Hiroshima Panels), Saitama. Sponsor: Maruki Museum- Here and There - Ashita no Shima (Tomorrow’s Islands), Nikon Salon, Tokyo, Osaka. Sponsor: Nikon.
2011- Dream of Image, Timeless Gallery, Beijing. Sponsor: Timeless Gallery.
- Mirrors in Our Nights, Kawasaki City Museum, Kawasaki. Sponsor: Kawasaki City Museum.
- Lights, Water, Conglomerate, Meiji University Gallery Zero, Kawasaki. Curator: Shino Kuraishi, Meiji
University.
2009- Flawless Lakes, Project Basho, Philadelphia. Curator: Tsuyoshi Ito
2007- Toward Lakes, engawa, Hayamamachi, Curator: Hitomi Kintani, Roundish inc.
- Half Mirror, Space Gallery Roundish, Osaka, Curator: Hitomi Kintani, Roundish inc.
2006
- Rendezvous on Mirror, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Curator: Junichi Seki, Yokohama Museumof Art
2001- Ocean Distilled, Cafa Cabiria, Tokyo

MAJOR GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021- Photographic Occurrences, Cook Center Process Gallery, Indiana University.
2020- AFTERGLOW: Yokohama Triennale 2020, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama.
2019- Feel the Sun in Your Mouth: Recent Acquisitions, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington,DC.

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- Visible Memories of Technologies, Natural History Museum of Chombook University, Jonju, Korea.
- VOCA 2019, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo.
2018- SAN (Three), Gallery Intersection 611, Hiroshima.
2017- DAY TO DAY, Gallery Forest, Space 56, Tokyo Collage of Photography, Yokohama.
- KAERU, Chi-Wen Gallery, Taipei.
- The Power of Images: MAST Collection. An iconic selection of photographs on industry and work, MASTFoundation, Bologna.
- Photobook Phenomenon, Centre de Cultura Contemporània, Barcelona.
2016- Unclear Nuclear, URANO, Tokyo.
- The 11th Shanghai Biennale.
- Japanese Photography from Postwar to Now, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
- ?The Image as Question: An exploration of evidential photography, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London.
- In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11, Asia Society, Houston.
- A New and Mysterious Art, Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC.
- Photo Shanghai, Shanghai Exhibition Center, Shanghai.
- Samuel F. B. Morse's Gallery of the Louvre and the Art of Invention, The Peabody Essex Museum, Salem.
- Paradise Lost, Museum Villa Rot, Ulm.
- Memory of the Future: Photographic dialogues between past, present and future, Musée de l'Elysée,Lausanne- Festival Photo La Gacilly, Brittany, France.
- AIPAD 2016, Park Avenue Armory, NYC.
- In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11, Japan Society, NYC.
- Dubai Photo, D3 Design District, Dubai.
- Imagine Fukushima, Court Gallery Kunitachi, Tokyo. *Hosted by Watermark Arts & Crafts
2015- To What End?, Camera Austria, Graz.
- In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
2014- Photography Will Be, Aichi Prefectural Museum, Nagoya.
- Words and Photographs: the Seeds of Remembrance, Setagaya Lifestyle Design Center, Tokyo.
2013-2014- Roppongi Crossing 2013: OUT OF DOUBT, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
2013- IO-1: Image Object Exhibit, The Center for Alternative Photography, NYC.
2012
- OVER THE REALITY, Gallery Terra Tokyo.
- Photography Today 4, MOMAT (The National Museum of Modern Art), Tokyo. Sponsor: MOMAT.
2011- EXPOSE / FALLOUT, KEN, Tokyo. Sponsor: KEN / Awazu Design Office.
- Portrait Studio in Museum, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama. Sponsor: Yokohama Museum of Art,
CP+2011. Cooperation: Photographers’ Association of Yokohama City.
2010- Immemorial Foreseeing, Fellini Gallery, Shanghai, China.
2009- Héritages de Daguerre, Exposition en France de Daguerréotypes contemporains internationaux etDiorama de Bry-sur-Marne, Bry-sur-Marne, France. Curator: Marc Kereun, Association Louis Daguerre.
2007

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- City Panoramic, san art, Ho Chi Minn City.
2004- Yojo no Uki, Hanano Ikada Buoys on the Water, Rafts of Petals, Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse,Yokohama.
2003- Aria, Hiyoshi Art and Performance Project, Keio University, Yokohama.

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE PROGRAMS
2014
Fall 2014 International Artist-in-Residence Program, Artpace San Antonio, TX
2006
Artist in Museum Yokohama 2006 - The 3 Artists, Yokohama Arts Foundation, Yokohama

FILMOGRAPHY
2021
To the Land of Mothers: The Hiroshima Panels 2021 (60min/Color/CDP/5.1ch)
2018
Oshira Kagami (20min/Color/CDP/5.1ch)
2014
49 PUMPKINS (12min/Color/H.264/Stereo)

MONOGRAPHS- MONUMENTS, Photo Gallery International, 2015.
- EXPOSE Issue1, 2014.
- Here and There, Ashita no Shima (Tomorrow’s Islands), KAGAMI, 1 July 2012.
- Shujitsuroku Lori, Private Edition, 2012.

SELECTED JOINT WORKS- 言葉をもみほぐす(Kotoba wo Momihogusu / Kneading Words), Iwanami, 2021.
- 災害とアートを探る (フィールド科学の入口) / Introduction to Field Science: Researching Disasters andArt, Tamagawa University Press, 2020.
- 3.11を心に刻んで 2018 (3.11 wo Kokoro ni Kizan de / Remembering 3.11, 2018 issue), Iwanami, 2018.

TREATISES- Science Fiction Films and the Repose of Souls: Narratives and Images of Government, Scientists, Media,and Citizens, in First Godzilla and Shin Godzilla, Anima Philosophica: Nature, Disaster, and Animism inJapan" (Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, 2021.
- A Brief History of Portrait Photography and Today's Practice: For the Partage of Others' Memories,
Japan Oral History Review (16), Japan Oral History Association, 2020.

SELECTED CATALOGUES- Bright was the Morning, Yokohama Arts Foundation, 2017.
- ?The Image as Question: An exploration of evidential photography, Michael Hoppen Gallery, 2016.
- Memory of the Future: Photographic dialogues between past, present and future, Musée de l’Elysée,
2016.
- DUBAI PHOTO, 2016.
- In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2015.
- Photography Will Be, Aichi Prefectural Museum, 2014.

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- Roppongi Crossing 2013: OUT OF DOUBT, Mori Art Museum, 2013.
- Exposed in a Hundred Suns, Amagasaki Cultural Center, 2013.
- Photography Today 4, MOMAT, 2012.
- Immemorial Foreseeing, Fellini Gallery, Shanghai, 2010.
- Héritages de Daguerre, Association Louis Daguerre, France, 2010.
- Koganecho Bazaar Guidebook + Text Book, Koganecho Bazaar, Yokohama, 2008.

MAJOR CONTRIBUTED ARTICLES- 連載：陽の光あるうちに (Serial Essay: Hi no Hikari Aru Uchini / Before the Sun Goes Down), 現代詩手帖(Gendaishi-techo / The Modern Poetry Magazine), Shicho-sha, Tokyo. January 2017- November 2019
- 連載：別腸日記 (Serial Essay: Betchō Nikki / A Drunken Diary), 水牛のように (Suigyu no Youni) http://suigyu.com. 2017- present.
- 連載：百の太陽を探して (Serial Essay: Hyaku no Taiyo wo Sagashite / Searching for the 100 Suns), 小さな雑誌(Chi-sana Zasshi), ed. OKAMURA, Yukinori (chief curator of the Maruki Gallery of Hiroshima Panels). 2013 present.
- Sharing Individual Memories on Micro-Monuments: Daguerreotype and New Narratives for the Atomic Age,

Association for East Asian Environmental History, Nankai University, Tianjin, Oct 26, 2017.
- 銀板写真で「核の記憶」を追う(Tracing the Memory of Atomic Age with Daguerreotype) National Geographic
Japan Edition, Tokyo, March Issue, 2017.
- 新しいモニュメントの到来のために (For the Arrival of New Monuments), Tosho, Iwanami, Tokyo, January,February and March Issues, 2017.
- 明日の歴史のために──ダゲレオタイプで写す、十七歳の肖像 (Tomorrow's History: Daguerreotype Portraits of17-year-olds) , Subaru, Shuei-sha, Tokyo, January Issue, 2017.
- もう一度、見ることの困難さとともに (Again, Embracing Difficulties of Seeing), Subaru, Shuei-sha, Tokyo,
October Issue, 2016.
- MONUMENTS, Graphication, Fuji Zerox, October Issue, 2017. https://www.fujixerox.co.jp/company/public/graphication/backnumber/2016_10.html- Shigeo Gocho 1946-1983, Camera Austria No.132, Camera Austria, Graz, 2016.
- TEN YEARS OF PICTURE POWER, Newsweek Japan Edition, CCC Media House, 2014.
- 震災と「核」をダゲレオタイプで撮り続けて (Taking Daguerreotypes of the Aftermath and Nuclear Issues),
Picture Power, Newsweek Japan Edition, April issue, 2017.
- 新井卓 ダゲレオタイプで記憶をとらえる (Takashi Arai: Securing Memories on Daguerreotypes), Geijutsu
Shincho, Shuei-sha, Tokyo, December issue, 2015.
- 遠野、早池峰への旅 (My Journey towards Hayachine, Tono), Shunju, Shunju-sha, Tokyo, January issue, 2014.
- ダゲレオタイピスト、新井卓 (Daguerreotypist, Takashi Arai), PHaT PHOTO vol.79, Tokyo, 2013.
- Daguerreotype, Daily Mainichi, Tokyo, May 2013.
- 願いを込めて銀板に刻む被災地の記憶 (Prayers: Recording Memories of Disaster Sites on Silver Plates), Picture
Power, Newsweek Japan Edition, pp.64-67, March 21st, 2012.
- Arai Takashi: a Daguerreotypical Man, 声 ko-e Magazine, pp.3-1, September and October issue, 2011.
- まなざすこと、希うこと(Seeing and Praying), Shunju April issue, pp.12-15, Shunju-sha, Tokyo, 2011.
- 鏡の両岸で出会うこと (Encounters on the both sides of Mirrors), Shunju January issue, pp.14-18, Shunju-sha,
Tokyo, 2011.

MAJOR LECTURES / SYMPOSIA

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- Panel: Le Labo vol. 34 : Dans l’œil du désastre, créer avec Fukushima, Institut Français, Tokyo, March 13,2021.
- Lecture: Handmade Photography Today: A Virtual Artist Talk with Takashi Arai, Davis Museum at Wellesley
College, May 26, 2020.
- Panel: 15th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, Chombook University, Jonju,
August 19th-23rd, 2019.
- Panel: Association for East Asian Environmental History (AEAEH) 2019, National Cheng Kung University,Tainan, Oct 23rd-27th, 2019.
- Plenary Speaker: Current State and the Possible future of Visual Oral History, Japan Oral History
Association, Tokyo, March 10th, 2019.

- Panel: UGAT (Anthropological Association of the Philippines), Palawan State University, Palawan, Nov
8th-10th, 2018.
- Panel: Association for East Asian Environmental History (AEAEH) 2017, Nankai University, Tianjin, Oct
26th-30th, 2017.
- Artist Talk: Takashi Arai, Asia Society Texas Center, Dec 4th, 2016.
- Lecture: Again, embracing difficulties of seeing, The Japan Society for Arts and History of Photography,
Nov 25th, 2016.
- Lecture: In the Shades on Mirrors: Daguerreotypes as Micro-Monuments for the Atomic Age, J. PaulGetty Museum, Nov 5th, 2016.
- Lecture: Exposed in a Hundred Suns - US-Japan Nuclear Legacies and the New Daguerreotypes as
Micro-monuments, The Society for Photographic Education, New Orleans, Mar 14th, 2015.
- Lecture: IO-1, The Center for Alternative Photography, NYC, April 3rd, 2013.
- Symposium: Fukushima Now, Bay Area Artists for Japan, Kala Art Institute Berkeley, Mar 31st, 2012.
- Lecture: Daguerreotype, for the arrival of new monuments, The Japan Society for Arts and History ofPhotography, Sept 8th, 2012.
- Artist Talk: Photography Now 4, MOMA Tokyo、July 21st, 2012.
- Symposium: Words and Photographs - With Natsuki Ikezawa, Kazuhiko Washio and Takashi Arai, Nikon
Plaza Tokyo, Mar 16th, 2012.

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