Takashi Arai Exposed in a Hundred Suns
A Maquette for a Multiple Monument for the Wristwatch Dug up from Ueno-Machi, Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, 2014
Series
The hypocentre, the point directly beneath or above a nuclear explosion, is a metaphor for invisibility and unreachability. This exploration of nuclear histories involves circling around atomic monuments as though navigating the hypocentre’s gravitational pull, taking hundreds of 6 cm by 6 cm daguerreotypes, an early form of photography.
At school in Cold-War Japan, Arai heard firsthand accounts from visiting hibakushas, survivors of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. His imagination of the nuclear apocalypse was also shaped by films and cartoons, often from Hollywood. The iconic mushroom cloud was rarely witnessed on the ground but was photographed from above by the very bombers that carried out the attack. In these ways, Japan’s visual memory of the bombings was shaped retrospectively, often through external perspectives.
Through its approach, the project challenges dominant historical representations and invites new ways of seeing.
About the photographer
Kawasaki, Japan, 1978
Berlin, Germany and Kawasaki, Japan
About Takashi Arai
Arai began to take a serious interest in photography during his biology studies at the International Christian University, Tokyo. While exploring the origins of photographs, he encountered and eventually mastered the daguerreotype. He has used this technique, one of the earliest in photography, to create what he calls micro-monuments, image-objects that vividly convey the sensation of engaging with events and subjects in a way that transcends time and space.
In 2010, when Arai was becoming interested in nuclear history, he encountered the hull of the Daigo Fukuryūmaru (Lucky Dragon V), a fishing boat damaged by an American nuclear test in 1954, and its former crew. He has continued to cover nuclear topics since then at locations including Fukushima, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In addition to his photography, Arai is a filmmaker, writer and researcher.
Arai’s work has been exhibited widely in Japan and internationally, including at Yokohama Museum of Art (2006); Timeless Gallery, Beijing (2011 and 2015); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2013); MFA Boston (2015; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art — SFMOMA (2017); and Purdy Hicks Gallery, London (2020).
Arai’s awards have included the Source-Cord Prize, United Kingdom (2014); the 41st Kimura Ihei Photography Award, Japan (2016) and the short film category at the 72nd Salerno Film Festival, Italy (2018).
His work is in the collections of museums including the Smithsonian, Washington DC; MFA Boston; SFMOMA; National Museum of Modern Art (MOMAT), Tokyo; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Musée Guimet, Paris.
His monographs include Hyaku no Taiyō / Hyaku no Kagami — Syashin to Kioku no Migiwa (One Hundred Suns / One Hundred Mirrors — On the Shore of Photography and Memory), published by Iwanami Shoten (2023) and Monuments, published by PGI (2015).