Toshiya Watanabe
Toshiya Watanabe has the talent to take the viewer to a place between the real and a surreal world. His works invoke a feeling of wonder whether the scenes that he photographs are real or not, similar to the ‘imaginary realism’ of the famed Dutch painter Carel Willink. Both instability and beauty exist in the images for which Watanabe used infrared film. We selected Watanabe for the Juror’s Choice Award because of his ability to ‘trick’ the viewer with his ephemeral images. To our opinion the collotype process would give Watanabe’s works extra depth and mystique. We hope that Watanabe will be able to experiment with collotypes in the future and that his work will find its way to a broader and more international public.
– Annemarie Zethof and Martijn van Pieterson Jurors, Hariban Award 2019
Artist Statement
Watanabe tries to scoop the images from the depths of his consciousness into photographs in this work. In [photographs of] real landscapes, such as the sea, the city, and vegetation, reality disappears, existing “not here, somewhere else”. Both instability and beauty exist in the pictures such as the valleys between buildings with heavy air, dazzling lights surrounding hills, and so on. At his solo exhibition “18 months” in 2013, Watanabe drew from memories to explore changes to his “everyday hometown” following its evacuation after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster. On the other hand, the series “Somewhere not Here” uses society as the subject, focusing on the ambiguous thing that appears and disappears underneath everyday life- “the sense of air in the world changes in a disturbing direction (extraordinary feeling), uneasy feelings, uncertain hope”.
Bio
Toshiya Watanabe was born in Fukushima in 1966. Whilst studying at Tama Art University, he was chosen by Parco as one of the “20 Most Promising Photographers”. Watanabe has been documenting his hometown Namie—it was designated as the exclusion zone due to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The series received a great response and was introduced in overseas media including Le Monde, Vice and The Big Issue Taiwan. Watanabe is one of the winners of the Steidl Book Award Japan 2016.
■審査員特別賞 – 渡部敏哉
「Somewhere not Here」シリーズより 渡部敏哉は、現実世界と非現実世界の狭間に観る者を誘い込む才能を持つ。彼の作品は、オランダ の有名な画家カレル・ウィルリンク(Carel Willink)の「幻想的リアリズム」と同様に、作品に写る光景は 現実のものなのだろうかという不思議な感覚を呼び起こす。渡部が赤外線フィルムを使用し撮影したイメージには不安定さと美しさの両方が存在する。彼のはかない作品が観る者を「だます」ことができるという点において、私たちは審査員特別賞に渡部を選んだ。私たちの見解では、コロタイプは彼の 作品にさらなる深みと神秘性を与えるはずである。将来、渡部の作品をコロタイプで試すことが可能になり、より広く海外の鑑賞者に届くことを願っている。
– アネマリー ゼゾフ & マルテイン・ヴァン・ピーターソン ハリバンアワード2019審査員
【略歴】
渡部敏哉は、1966年福島県生まれ。多摩美術大学在学中にPARCOが主催する「期待され る若手写真家20人展」に選出される。福島第一原子力発電所事故の影響で警戒区域に指定され た故郷、福島県浪江町を記録した一連の作品はLe Monde、VICE、THE BIG ISSUE TAIWANなど海 外メディアでも数多く紹介され大きな反響を呼んだ。2016年STEIDL BOOK AWARD JAPANを受賞。
Jurors Choice Award｜Selected by Annemarie Zethof and Martijn van Pieterson
Series Title
Somewhere not Here
Website
Category
Hariban Award 2019