{"id":631781,"date":"2026-06-10T20:16:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/631781\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T20:16:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:16:18","slug":"two-photographers-half-a-century-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/631781\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Photographers, Half a Century Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presented in conjunction with Kyotographie photography festival, Kawada Kikuji x Iwane Ai at Japan House London features the work of two photographers whose images contemplate memory, loss and preservation in the shadow of tragic national catastropheJune 10, 2026<\/p>\n

Since Japan House London opened in South Kensington in 2018, it has hosted exhibitions on nearly everything from the Tokyo Olympics to restaurant-window food replicas and artist Naoki Urasawa\u2019s manga. This June, however, the venue unveils its first-ever photography exhibition that spans nearly 75 years of material.<\/p>\n

19Kawada Kikuji and Iwane Ai at Japan House London<\/a><\/p>\n

Presented in conjunction with Kyotographie<\/a> photography festival, Kawada Kikuji x Iwane Ai pairs two photographers separated by more than half a century, but unexpectedly intertwined via their expressions of memory, loss and preservation. Nonagenerian Kikuji, a recipient of the lifetime achievement award from the Photographic Society of Japan in 2011, is described by director of programming Simon Wright as \u201cthe grandaddy of photography\u201d in Japan. Iwane AI, meanwhile, has risen to prominence following the publication of her award-winning debut monograph KIPUKA in 2019.<\/p>\n

Though distinct in their practice, the pairing is intuitive. National catastrophes like the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster cast a shadow across each photographer\u2019s work. But the exhibition goes deeper. \u201cThe thread is about overcoming loss and coming to terms with grief,\u201d says Wright, with Kawada\u2019s societal meditations \u201cmapping his world on a grander scale\u201d, as Iwane\u2019s reflections draw from personal loss and the displacements of small communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The result is an exhibition that meditates broadly on how memory is captured and carried forward following upheaval \u2013 and with this perspective, its impression lingers.<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"KawadaKikuji Kawada, Hiroshima, Ohta River, Atomic Bomb Dome [Hiroshima, O\u0304tagawa, Genbakudo\u0304mu], 1959-1965\u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy of PGI<\/p>\n

Kikuji Kawada was born in 1933 and was just 12 years old when World War Two concluded with the atomic destruction of two major cities in Japan at the hands of US forces. As an adult, Kawada began to photograph the destruction in Hiroshima as part of a project that would become, arguably, Japan\u2019s most important photobook: 1965\u2019s Chizu (The Map).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was about 13 years since the atomic bomb was dropped,\u201d Kawada tells AnOther of the project\u2019s genesis, \u201cbut rumour had it that radioactivity still lingered in the city. It was a \u2018sacred ruin\u2019 of unprecedented violence. But I wanted to shift from the objective perspective of documentary photography towards a more personal vision.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The results have lost none of their power. The ravaged interiors of the ruined Industrial Promotion Hall (now the Hiroshima Peace Memorial or \u201cAtomic Bomb Dome\u201d) are depicted alongside relics of US culture, such as Coca-Cola bottles and Lucky Strike cigarette packets, that lay embedded in the same rubble. These aren\u2019t merely societal statements that point to the impact of a foreign power, but also insights into Kawada\u2019s artistic vision and philosophy: \u201cWithin these highly representational photographs, there conversely lay a power to present illusions,\u201d Kawada continues. \u201cI found abstract images in the \u2018stains\u2019 covering the entirety of the dimly lit ceiling inside the Atomic Bomb Dome.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"KawadaKawada Kikuji, from the series The Map Visions of the Invisible\u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy of PGI<\/p>\n

Later Kawada works on display offer further insight into the photographer\u2019s evolving worldviews, with the urban snapshots of Los Caprichos (1968-1981) offering distinct, and often haunting daily observations. 11th September, 2006, from The Last Cosmology series, meanwhile, offers a fresh glance towards America in association with disaster \u2013 \u201cit refers to the evening of the terrorist attacks in New York, which I watched on the news on TV in Tokyo,\u201d Kawada says. \u201cStrangely enough, the sky took on an unusual hue [that day].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The deeper dualities of meaning present in the title for Zeno and KiKi \u2013 a depiction of two crows observed in the night sky \u2013 further underline Kawada\u2019s enduring rumination on the nuances of disaster. \u201cZeno is the ancient Greek inventor of paradoxes; the word KiKi means \u2018crisis\u2019 in Japanese,\u201d he says. \u201cThe name was inspired by my admiration for Surrealist paintings from long ago. I sense violence and catastrophe in such a crisis-ridden space and time, and this, too, seems to be connected to Chizu (The Map).\u201d<\/p>\n

As Kawada\u2019s wider The Last Cosmology series points to a broader and celestial scale of self-reflection, Iwane Ai\u2019s work, which also reacts to seismic events and upheavals, is more intimate. Long-running series KIPUKA, for one, exposes the ceremonial commemoration of half-forgotten Japanese immigrants in Hawaii \u2013 and is anchored by captivating panoramas of the Fukushima Ondo bon dance, a taiko drum-fuelled folk tradition to honour the dead that followed immigrant communities from Fukushima to the American Pacific island in the late 19th century.<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"KawadaIwane Ai, Paia Mantokuji Soto Mission Hawaii, 2015, from Kipuka\u00a9\ufe0e Iwane Ai\"Pin<\/a>\"KawadaIwane Ai, Futaba, Fukushima, 2014\u00a9\ufe0e Iwane Ai<\/p>\n

\u201cKIPUKA started after I went to Hawaii for the first time in 2006, and discovered the abandoned graveyards of the first generation of immigrants,\u201d says Iwane, gesturing towards an image of a cracked stone column half-consumed by verdant vegetation. \u201cBetween 1868 and 1924, 220,000 people migrated to Hawaii from Japan to work in sugarcane plantations and pineapple fields, but it\u2019s kind of an untold history.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the process of documenting these scenes of commemoration and celebration, Iwane discovered long panoramic photos depicting immigrant funerals in the homes of their ancestors in Hawaii. \u201cThey were taken so that [the displaced families] could record how many people had shown up at the moment of death, and send those images home,\u201d she explains. After acquiring a deteriorating Kodak Cirkut rotating camera in Maui, Iwane then utilised the same panoramic format to capture the clapping hands of the bon dance under fire-red lights, and graveyards encroached by the pyroclastic flows of Hawaiian volcanoes. The collection\u2019s title is taken from the Hawaiian word referring to an isolated area of land that survives a lava flow following volcanic eruption \u2013 a term also used to define a place \u201cof new life\u201d, or \u201cwhere life, or culture, endures\u201d.<\/p>\n

Iwane\u2019s work took on a greater poignancy following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster (caused by the T\u043e\u0304hoku earthquake and tsunami) of 2011 \u2013 after which she continued with the panoramic format as she traced the origins of the Fukushima Ondo song to the evacuated town of Futaba in Fukushima. Presented in parallel to images captured in Hawaii, themes of destruction and desolation become increasingly prevalent.<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"KawadaIwane Ai, From Fukushima, Hana\u00a9\ufe0e Iwane Ai<\/p>\n

Selections from 2020\u2019s A New River series, which captures deserted cherry blossoms in bloom at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, were also shot in the same T\u043e\u0304hoku region. \u201cUsually, there are 3,000 people here every day during cherry season,\u201d says Iwane. \u201cBut this was all taken away.\u201d The night-time stills showcase blooming vegetation distorted by glimmering light and ogre-like oni demons. The latter\u2019s presence was inspired by taiko drummer and Futaba evacuee Hisakatsu Yokoyama, who wrote a musical piece inspired by the rhythmic footsteps [of evacuees] following the 2011 power plant meltdown. Much like the radiation released from that event, he considers oni not as purely evil \u2013 but as merely a force coexisting with nature.<\/p>\n

Time spent among the lonely, irradiated cherry blossoms held a deep personal significance for Iwane. \u201cMy sister took her own life 19 years ago during the cherry season,\u201d she says. Reflecting on her memories of that grief and its gradual dissipation from her day-to-day life, she created a slide projection that layers the new images she captured of the cherry blossoms over family photos of her sibling. \u201cAs you bring in another image, the image of my sister [is obscured] but doesn\u2019t completely fade away,\u201d says Iwane. \u201cThis is how I think of her now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Motifs that point to such tragedies and contemplations endure across all corners of this thought-provoking exhibition, and likewise continue to underscore the practices of each displaying photographer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Pin<\/a>\"KawadaKikuji Kawada, Layer of Coca-Cola (Kokako\u0304ra), 1959-1965\u00a9 Kikuji Kawada, Courtesy of PGI<\/p>\n

At 93 years old, Kawada continues to \u201cstand in this wilderness of imagination\u201d as he perseveres with his craft every single day \u2013 documenting his observations on Instagram<\/a> in foreboding images that speak both to the past and the future. \u201cLouis Jacques Mand\u00e9 Daguerre, [the inventor of the daguerrotype,] described photography as \u2018a mirror with a memory\u2019,\u201d says Kawada. \u201cA mirror reveals to us what we can\u2019t see \u2026 and I am always in search of encounters with the invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Iwane, such contemplations of memory and exposure are no less evident. \u201cThe Japanese immigrant people in Hawaii are always very careful to take their family story to the next generation, passing through their history and their struggle,\u201d she concludes of her displaying works. \u201cFrom working with them, I realised something: as far back as you can think of your past, and understand how it\u2019s connected to you, you should also think this far, and as much, to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kyotographie: Kawada Kikuji x Iwane Ai<\/a> runs until 18 October 2026 at Japan House London.<\/p>\n