2018
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |
So Mitsuya
-What I See-
Concept
One day, I was walking down a street with my mother. Suddenly she pointed at the roadside and said "Has that signboard always been there??" and I said, "Well, I'm not sure." although I felt like the signboard had been there for a very long time. The signboard might not have been there at all.
Profile
1990 Born in Kyoto
Solo Exhibition
2015 “Untitled Photograhs”-Solo Exhibition, OFF Gallery / Tokyo, Japan
Group Exhibition
2016 DER GREIF Online Exhibition, Curated by Joerg Colberg / Augsburg, Germany
2016 DER GREIF A Process 2.0 -Group Exhibition Curated by Lars Willumeit / Tytano, Krakow, Poland
2016 New City Art Fair 2016 (Einstein Sudio) -Group Exhibition, hpgrp Gallery / NewYork, USA
2016 New Japan Photo (Einstein Sudio) -Group Exhibition, MIDORISO.2 Gallery / Tokyo, Japan
2016 "solos" APARTMENT vol .2 -Group Exhibition, A.P.S / Tokyo, Japan
Bibliography
2017 Terra Firma Magazine Issue. 04 / UK
2017 Terra Firma Magazine B&W Edition Issue. 04 / UK
2017 American A *Parip? Books / ESP
2017 LIFE FRAMER collection/ UK
2016 DER GREIF Magazine Issue. 9 / GER
2016 DER GREIF A Process 2.0 / GER
2016 Intelligence Magazine / CA
2016 DER GREIF -Guest Room- Joerg Colberg / GER
2016 PLAN Magazine Issue. 425 / JP
2016 PLAN Magazine Issue. 426 *Cover Photo/ JP
2016 niuhans-Journal-Interview / JP
2016 Wooly Magazine Issue.24 / JP
2016 Einstein Archives Magazine / JP
2015 NewJapanPhoto Issue.1 / JP
2015 Life is a Banana / FRA
2015 If You Leave Showcase / UK
2015 Mutant Space Photography / IRL
2015 The Latent Image / US
2015 Phases Photography Magazine / FRA
2014 Booooooom / CA
Website
Comment
At first look, So Mitsuya’s photographs are disarming - these magical, elliptical photographic milliseconds caught by the camera. The longer I look, the more precise and determined they become for me. They are quite unforgettable encounters with unexplained, unfolding dramas - vignettes into the visual strangeness and emotional off-kilter nature of our world. So Mitsuya has an exceptional talent for building a visual narrative that catches you off guard.
Charlotte Cotton (Writer,Editor,Curator) Prize
The majority of us are inundated by images. Yet, within this enormous surplus, we still manage to be moved by them, propelled to share them. It's in this image deluge that Mitsuya has managed to produce a most special action — the need to revisit an image.
No other creative medium is asked this the most: is it created or captured? Fake or real? Why is the photographer expected to answer these questions? Mitsuya leaves us questioning not only the content of an image, but it's creation.
David Toro (DIS) Prize
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |
Kyoko Takemura
-Luxury beyond Death-
Concept
The series portrays the paper offerings that are traditionally burnt for the deceased on their death anniversary in Vietnam. Besides bank notes, various kinds of paper effigies are burnt, and many of them imitates luxury brand items such as Rolex watch and Gucci wallet.
According to the religion, once people die, the souls become reincarnated in the underworld. The deceased need their home comforts and luxury items as much as the living.
This funeral practice provokes the following questions:
- Ghost money lacks purpose to the living, but the billions of dollars that we generate also become inaccessible to us in death. Then what’s truly valuable in life?
- If there is a life after life, how do we know that the life we are leading is not an afterlife itself of a different world?
Profile
1992 Born in Kanagawa
2016 Central Saint Martins BA Graphic Design graduate.
Home Page
Comment
Takemura gives us a simple yet insightful look into a prominent ritual surrounding death in Vietnam.
A compelling reflection upon modern day consumerism, Luxury Beyond Death highlights how relatives burn paper offerings at the graves of the deceased with the belief that they will need the same luxury items that they had when they were still living. The project highlights our obsession with consumerism whilst simultaneously raising questions about what awaits us in the afterlife.
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |
Masashi Mihotani
-Images are for illustration purposes-
Concept
This work was created with a color photogram. The materials used were photographs printed on packages of daily necessities lined up on a supermarket shelf. From the viewpoint of the principle of light, colours reversed by the characteristics of photographic paper were absorbed by the subjects. This means that the images are the backside of the light that did not reach our eyes and these are scenes having physical contact to realities. They were converted into concrete information which should have been easily related to something. Mysterious images to be expressed are a metaphor with countless channels that receive light as a visual medium, and our vision is one of them. It seems that we are seeing a glimpse through the "eyes of the photographic paper". Photographs overflow online, while physical prints also continue to be mass produced with low quality. Photographs are a piece of such a consumer society and reproduction technology and also include modern found photographic characters. Photograms are fixed to photographic paper with patterns of halftone dots. It also can be transferred to the surfaces of packages made of aluminum and paper.
Profile
1987 Born in Osaka
2015 Visual Arts College Osaka, Photography department.
Home Page
Comment
Comming Soon...
Mutsuko Ota (IMA Editorial Director) Prize
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |
Shohei Miyachi
-Untitled-
Concept
My photographs explore role-playing and power dynamics in male to male sex acts. The staged experiences result in abstractions of the body that are closeup, boldly graphic, and overexposed. As visceral and intimate as the situations are, there is a distance and restraint arising from the fact that the sex acts are simulated; they are performed, without orgasm, and recorded by the artist, who participates himself, with strangers who are found through online sites and sex toy stores.
Profile
1989 Born in Shizuoka
2014 School of Visual Arts graduate.
2019 MFA Photography Pratt Institute graduate.
Home Page
Comment
What I admire is how Shohei Miyachi's photographs of men having sex are provocative but not graphic. The naked bodies of older men are an unusual sight, especially in relation to sexuality both in photography and society at large. Miyachi abstract them without hiding them, ultimately taking us in a place of pleasure where the photographer himself is the initiator and participant to the game / performance.
Bruno Ceschel (Self Publish Be Happy Director) Prize