Shortlisted Photographers 2012 – Yasuyuki Takagi
“I am presenting here two different series. One is about an ancient forest I visited earlier this year in the southern island of Japan to witness with my bare eyes a living tree that may be 7,000 years old. During my quest I was struck by the beauty and power of the forest. The second series of photographs is an ongoing project about community gardens in New York City. These images are from Harlem, where there are now over sixty community gardens. Originally these gardens began as an art movement in the 1960s planting seeds in abandoned lots. Today’s gardens show why we need these sacred places for our urban environment. Both projects are photographed in black and white, where nature becomes timeless and abstract. The experience is as if I were visiting a personal fairy tale; one the true form of nature itself and the other remade by humans.”
Yasuyuki Takagi (Japan) studied photography at the Pratt Institute. Now based in New York, he works simultaneously on editorial commissions for magazines such as Brutus, Esquire, GQ, The Telegraph and Wallpaper*. His personal work has been exhibited at the Capsule Gallery and the Corridor Gallery, in New York.
