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Hakanai Sonzai builds onthe immersive photographic project conducted in Cuba in 2016 (published inDesmemoria). Pierre-Elie de Pibrac traveled to Japan in 2020, a country that had experienced the Fukushima tsunami and where residents rarely open up about their emotions or their psychological and personal concerns. He then traveled the length and breadth of the country to meet people whose lives were turned upside down by the earthquake. For centuries, Japan has cultivated the concept ofMono no Aware—a sensitivity to the ephemeral, a keen perception of the impermanence of things. The title of the book,Hakanai Sonzai, refers to this through the translation: “I feel myself to be a fleeting creature.” Thus, as the pages book unfold like a large-format album, the reader slowly enters the private world of women, men, and children, who gradually become “characters.” The photographer creates large-format portraits in natural light, like mental images narrated by the subjects themselves and imagined by the artist.
Punctuated by portfolios of black-and-white urban landscapes printed on a different paper, Pierre-Elie de Pibrac’s images immerse us in Japanese culture. They speak of obsolescence and reveal the fragile beauty of our human condition, accompanied by severaltankasby the Japanese poet Kujira Sakisaka. An essay by Michel Poivert explores this body of work by drawing a connection between the obsolescence of the photographic medium and that of our modern societies, with Japan at the heart of the excesses of the Anthropocene.
Published by Atelier EXB, 2023
24.5 cm 32.5 cm, 184 pages, in very good condition
ISBN
Hakanai Sonzai builds onthe immersive photographic project conducted in Cuba in 2016 (published inDesmemoria). Pierre-Elie de Pibrac traveled to Japan in 2020, a country that had experienced the Fukushima tsunami and where residents rarely open up about their emotions or their psychological and personal concerns. He then traveled the length and breadth of the country to meet people whose lives were turned upside down by the earthquake. For centuries, Japan has cultivated the concept ofMono no Aware—a sensitivity to the ephemeral, a keen perception of the impermanence of things. The title of the book,Hakanai Sonzai, refers to this through the translation: “I feel myself to be a fleeting creature.” Thus, as the pages book unfold like a large-format album, the reader slowly enters the private world of women, men, and children, who gradually become “characters.” The photographer creates large-format portraits in natural light, like mental images narrated by the subjects themselves and imagined by the artist.
Punctuated by portfolios of black-and-white urban landscapes printed on a different paper, Pierre-Elie de Pibrac’s images immerse us in Japanese culture. They speak of obsolescence and reveal the fragile beauty of our human condition, accompanied by severaltankasby the Japanese poet Kujira Sakisaka. An essay by Michel Poivert explores this body of work by drawing a connection between the obsolescence of the photographic medium and that of our modern societies, with Japan at the heart of the excesses of the Anthropocene.
Published by Atelier EXB, 2023
24.5 cm 32.5 cm, 184 pages, in very good condition
ISBN
