2021, 2024
TO IMPLORE YOUR LIGHT
Photograph of 108 still images of the performance (modified camera flash as a temporal slide projector, 35mm slide films, camera, tripod)
Performed at MASS MoCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) as part of the MASS MoCA Studio residency in 2021
To Implore Your Light (Photo Book)
2024
11 x 10 x 1 in. (262 pages)
To Implore Your Light is a photographic series that exposes the hidden nuclear legacy embedded in many places across the United States through the contemplation of nuclear bomb victims both in Japan and the United States.
The project consists of 108 photographs documenting the projection of 108 eyes and the surrounding building that the image is projected. This collection of 108 eyes belongs to 54 American Downwinders and 54 Japanese a-bomb victims; stares out unblinking, homogeneous and anonymous. The original images were curated from books, video interviews and images I gathered from my own family album.
I modified a camera flash into a temporal projector, where I can insert a 35mm slide film to project the image onto any surface just momentary; it reflects the countless A-bomb survivors’ stories describing the explosion as a single blinding flash. The projector is synchronized to the camera where I can record both the projection and the building that the image is projected to, making the photograph a record of the temporal monument.
This project was first conceived during my studio residency at MASS MoCA (November 2021) where I learnt that most of the buildings where MASS MoCA currently resides belonged to Sprague Electronic during WWll. The company was commissioned by the US government to develop a special capacitor for making the first Atomic Bombs which was then tested at Los Alamos, NM and later dropped in Japan to end the WWll. I decided to project these eyes of nuclear weapon victims from both sides of the conflict to the museum exterior.
Associated with Eye Who Witnessed (MASS MoCA)
2021, 2024
TO IMPLORE YOUR LIGHT
Photograph of 108 still images of the performance (modified camera flash as a temporal slide projector, 35mm slide films, camera, tripod)
Performed at MASS MoCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) as part of the MASS MoCA Studio residency in 2021
To Implore Your Light (Photo Book)
2024
11 x 10 x 1 in. (262 pages)
To Implore Your Light is a photographic series that exposes the hidden nuclear legacy embedded in many places across the United States through the contemplation of nuclear bomb victims both in Japan and the United States.
The project consists of 108 photographs documenting the projection of 108 eyes and the surrounding building that the image is projected. This collection of 108 eyes belongs to 54 American Downwinders and 54 Japanese a-bomb victims; stares out unblinking, homogeneous and anonymous. The original images were curated from books, video interviews and images I gathered from my own family album.
I modified a camera flash into a temporal projector, where I can insert a 35mm slide film to project the image onto any surface just momentary; it reflects the countless A-bomb survivors’ stories describing the explosion as a single blinding flash. The projector is synchronized to the camera where I can record both the projection and the building that the image is projected to, making the photograph a record of the temporal monument.
This project was first conceived during my studio residency at MASS MoCA (November 2021) where I learnt that most of the buildings where MASS MoCA currently resides belonged to Sprague Electronic during WWll. The company was commissioned by the US government to develop a special capacitor for making the first Atomic Bombs which was then tested at Los Alamos, NM and later dropped in Japan to end the WWll. I decided to project these eyes of nuclear weapon victims from both sides of the conflict to the museum exterior.
Associated with Eye Who Witnessed (MASS MoCA)
© 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.