片桐 正義

Masayoshi Katagiri

〈Trace〉 / Portraits of Absence
The series 〈Trace〉 / Portraits of Absence utilizes a specialized powder typically used in forensic investigations to visualize and capture the "traces" remaining on the surface of objects. The resulting images—faint, yet emitting a subtle luminescence—reveal a "sediment of touch, crystallized through long silence," something that is usually invisible to the naked eye.

While photography is inherently a medium for recording what "was there," the light captured in 〈Trace〉 is an attempt to visualize what existed even before the object was placed—a "past of the past." It is an act of eternally preserving the presence of those who once touched these objects, their existence having transmuted over the years into a part of the material itself.

Exhibition Structure
Photographs
Objects are selected based on interviews with the bereaved, tracing the character and life of the deceased through the items that symbolize their story. By capturing these personal effects through the 〈Trace〉 method, the record of their presence carved into this world is rendered visible.

Installation
The actual items used in the photographs—furniture, clothing, and personal effects—are presented in the space. Viewers can experience the "human presence" that has dissolved into the texture of the material within an environment that mirrors reality.

Objective
To invite the viewer to become a witness to the fact that "they truly existed."

Through the memories of touch and the traces of existence settled into matter, 〈Trace〉 questions the boundaries between past and present, between record and memory.