2025
ALL THAT THE SHADOWS HOLD
100 foot long scroll (light sensitive paper, sunlight, artist's breath), rocks from White Sands, NM and video
Installation: Various
All That the Shadows Hold was created to mark the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear weapon detonation—the Trinity Test on July 16, 1945. On the morning of July 16, 2025, I traveled to a site near the original test grounds in New Mexico, where the rising sun aligns closely with the direction of the Trinity fireball. At dawn, I unrolled 100 feet of light-sensitive photographic paper across the desert floor and exposed it to the first light of day.
The resulting sun-fused scroll—eventually rendered completely black—functions as an abstract record of exposure, duration, and erasure. By allowing sunlight to overwhelm the surface, the work echoes the original flash that inaugurated the atomic age, while refusing literal representation. The image holds no detail, only aftermath.
All That the Shadows Hold exists as a shadow monument: a gesture of remembrance shaped by absence rather than spectacle. It asks what remains after illumination, and how memory persists when images collapse under their own intensity.
2025
ALL THAT THE SHADOWS HOLD
100 foot long scroll (light sensitive paper, sunlight, artist's breath), rocks from White Sands, NM and video
Installation: Various
All That the Shadows Hold was created to mark the 80th anniversary of the first nuclear weapon detonation—the Trinity Test on July 16, 1945. On the morning of July 16, 2025, I traveled to a site near the original test grounds in New Mexico, where the rising sun aligns closely with the direction of the Trinity fireball. At dawn, I unrolled 100 feet of light-sensitive photographic paper across the desert floor and exposed it to the first light of day.
The resulting sun-fused scroll—eventually rendered completely black—functions as an abstract record of exposure, duration, and erasure. By allowing sunlight to overwhelm the surface, the work echoes the original flash that inaugurated the atomic age, while refusing literal representation. The image holds no detail, only aftermath.
All That the Shadows Hold exists as a shadow monument: a gesture of remembrance shaped by absence rather than spectacle. It asks what remains after illumination, and how memory persists when images collapse under their own intensity.
© 2023 by Kei Ito.
Created on Editor X.
Sungazing
2015 - Ongoing
108 of 8”x10” prints, Scroll: 12” x 150’ to 220’ depending on the edition
On August 6th 1945, at 8:15 AM, my grandfather witnessed a great tragedy that destroyed nearly everything in Hiroshima. He survived the bombing, yet he lost many of his family members from the explosion and radiation poisoning. As an activist and author, my grandfather fought against the use of nuclear weaponry throughout his life, until he too passed away from cancer when I was ten years old. I remember him saying that day in Hiroshima was like hundreds of suns lighting up the sky.
In order to express the connection between the sun and my family history, I have created 108 letter size prints and a 200 foot long scroll, made by exposing Type-C photographic paper to sunlight. The pattern on the prints/scroll corresponds to my breath. In a darkened room, I pulled the paper in front of a small aperture to expose it to the sun while inhaling, and paused when exhaling. I repeated this action until I breathed 108 times. 108 is a number with ritual significance in Japanese Buddhism; to mark the Japanese New Year, bells toll 108 times, ridding us of our evil passions and desires, and purifying our souls.
If the black parts of the print remind you of a shadow, it is the shadow of my breath, which is itself a registration of my life, a life I share with and owe to my grandfather. The mark of the atomic blast upon his life and upon his breath was passed on to me, and you can see it as the shadow of this print.