From Somewhere to Elsewhere
January 9, 2021
Say something about yourself
I’m non-professional photographer that grew up in a small town in north Kumamoto and currently resides in Tokyo Japan. I have no formal education in photography but is inspired by everything in each day-to-day experience.
What is this series?
“All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.” Ecclesiastes 1:7
As the title indicates, this story takes the simple format of coming from somewhere and heading away elsewhere. As with numerous stories, the beginning and ending are slightly similar. This structure is primarily influenced by the novel authored by Jorge Luis Borges as well as “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?” by Paul Gauguin, which focus on the topics of circularity and the view of life and death in Buddhism.
They pictured in these photos, me as I write this, and you who are looking at the photographs, all exist right now in our own respective times. To me, “you” are the future, the presence of which I can only imagine. You the observers probably sense “them and me” living in different times. This is also a letter from myself and them to you, who are in “elsewhere” of this story. I am confident that the emotions triggered in those of you who are receiving this will lead to something yet different.
How/When did you start this series?
I’m particularly interested in the invisible emotional and poetic impressions that surround us on an ordinary day, and I will taking the photos based on that. But I couldn’t to understand at that time what I was seeing the essentials when taking photos. Then I started that sorted and selected my photos for explore it. Because I felt like I can go to the next steps if I could grasp something from there. In fact, this project was born from such a process. I picked up the superficial / internal common of various photos that different time and place and found story in it. The one that axis of the story that have influenced me up to until now. Among them, especially notable things are written in this statement.
So, strictly speaking, even though the project is inspired by Borges, but my view of life is influenced by him including “The Circular Ruins” from long before. I do not write it in the statement, but I feel that it is also influenced by Joyce’s “Ulysses” and John Ford’s “The Searchers”, and many other novels and movies.
What message do you want to tell the audience?
There is a reason for me to mention “time(= moments)” in this statement. At first, since the sequence of photos represents the “transit” too superficially for understandability, then I wanted to eliminate the concern that people would receive it according to only the title. By referring to “they”, “me” and “you” that exist on different time axes, because I expected the superficial continuity of those image may remind the peoples of the “huge stream of the time”. In other words, I wanted them to realize that the existence of people who saw this projects is on “the line” of this story.
Any news or updates?
We will hold a group exhibition “New Universality” in Yotsuya, Tokyo, in May. Hiroki Takenoya is the founder and Yuki Abe, Koji Ishikawa will participate. They have taken various awards in Japan, and are future success is greatly anticipated. Also during the exhibition, a talk show is also scheduled, inviting Mikiko Kikuta who independent curator.
Yota Yoshida (1981) is non-professional photographer based in Tokyo Japan. He started photography from 2014 with self-taught style when bought a camera because his daughter was born.
Website : https://www.yotayoshida.com/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/yotayoshida/
Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/yoshidayota
Flickr : https://www.flickr.com/people/108761754@N04/
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