When she speaks about photography, Akiko Takizawa undergoes a transformation. The cheerful young woman turns into a dark storyteller from the beyond. She speaks about her uncle, her mentor, who introduced her to photography at 19 and died young. She speaks about her aunt who, knowing she would die soon, wrote letters to the deceased. She speaks about the death of her grandparents and their abandoned house, which Takizawa visited just before it was demolished. She speaks about the dead, invokes spirits and communicates with them. She speaks about the absolute necessity in photography of a disconnection between the heart and brain. “I’m 42 but I feel very old, and I’m only alive through photography.” She speaks about the poor neighborhoods where she’s always lived, about anxiety and the anger of these places of which she is very afraid. This is a fear she wants to overcome in order to release the shutter, and we understand better and better the extraordinary relationship between Takizawa and the Japanese tradition of black-and-white postwar photography.
EXHIBITION
Winners Prix HSBC pour la Photographie 2014
Delphine Burtin & Akiko Takizawa
From June 20th to July 12th, 2014
Galerie Seine 51
51, rue de Seine
75006 Paris
France
