西村勇人

Hayato Nishimura

This series is intended to find the way humans live on the layers of the ages, focusing on the ancient burial mounds (called Kofun in Japanese) that exist in the landscape while being irrelevant to the lives of modern people. The ancient burial mounds were built in East Asia, including Japan, as graves where persons in authority sleep a dozen centuries ago. There are many mounds that have been damaged in ways that do not preserve dignity, or are buried in cities and are unable to keep quiet in the urbanization in later generations, especially in modern times. Although the value as a cultural heritage has been recognized and has been the subject of protection and conservation in recent years, there is no buffer between the mounds and the houses, public facilities or public infrastructure due to the already advanced urbanization. The landscape has a strange aspect in which human activities are separated by time and consciousness. The exhibition will include photographs taken in and around Kyoto City. [Comment from the gallery] Hayato Nishimura has visited and shot about 300 of the ancient burial mounds. Nishimura's gaze is not that of an archaeologist, but it feels like the gaze of an objects (ancient burial mounds) that has been silently thinking for years. An ever-changing society could lead to dysfunction or the extinction of human race in the future. The photographic works with no human beings makes me imagine a near future in which there will be no one, or a real scene in 100 or 200 years. In this sense, Nishimura's gaze may be a challenge directed at human race. In this exhibition, simply framed photographic works will be displayed. Nishimura's works have elicited a variety of comments from viewers with diverse perspectives, such as reflections on Japanese history and modern Japanese history, relations with rituals, and anecdotes about contemporary real estate. These diverse words and discourses bring to the surface more clearly the different realities that have been buried in the urban landscape. This exhibition also focuses on ancient burial mounds in the historically unique city of Kyoto.