松村 和彦

Kazuhiko Matsumura

A man with dementia said this, “People with dementia and people without dementia see the world differently.”

People with dementia suffer from brain damage due to illness and other factors, and their functions such as memory, language, perception, and thinking deteriorates.

Their daily life from the point of the effects of dementia gradually changes.
The grief of loss casts a shadow over their minds.

The photographer met people who still found the light through the four projects that make up this exhibition.

The symptoms of dementia are not only caused by a decline in brain function, but are also deeply related to the person's internal state and surrounding environment.

If they can connect with people and live their own lives, the progression and symptoms will become milder.

As the population ages, there might be a time soon when someone close to you will develop dementia. 

Even if the views are different, empathy for people with dementia will be "medicine" for them.
Everyone can become "medicine" for them.
If the "medicine" of understanding spreads within society, a warm light will shine in many other aspects of our lives.

bio
Born in 1980, Kazuhiko Matsumura joined The Kyoto Shimbun as a reporter in 2003 and became a photojournalist in 2005. He creates works on the theme of “life.” He has published two collections of photographs: “Hanaya” (2014, Kyoto Newspaper Publishing Center), which portrays the lives of geiko and maiko in Kyoto, and “Guruguru” (2016, self-produced), a personal work depicting the interweavings of fate through life and death in his family. An earlier work, “Invisible Rainbow,” was serialized in newspapers (the original title was “It wasn't supposed to be like this” ), winning the Japan Medical Journalists Association Award and the Sakata Memorial Journalism Award. Currently, he is engaged in a project on dementia.