Terrace Square Photo Exhibition vol. 4
Memory of the earth – Reminiscence of Clay
Photographer Yumiko Miyahama interview

“Memory of the earth” which was held in the entrance lobby of Terrace Square until last december (2016), the photos of vases and flowers looked beautiful and a lot of people enjoyed it. The vases are handmade and use clay material, the flowers in the other hand the flower’s appearance are simple and the combination of the two make the audience feel at peace looking at them. So here’s the interview of the photographer at the origin of this project.

ー How did you feel to expose in Kanda Jimbocho this time?

Personally I really like Jimbocho. And so I was really glad that the exhibition could take place in Tokyo. The entrance of the venue is pretty wide, so I was happy that you could put some distance in admiring the art. It was a nice experience and I was able to take big picture and draw there.

ー This time you also choose the frames to go with the pictures.

The theme of this exhibition is “Reminiscence of the clay”. My desire was to be able to print on different textures and using natural materials. Using these material to print on, we can see the paper’s texture compare to the use of common frame with a glass that reflect the light.

ー So tell me more about the subject of this exhibition.

I took pictures of ceramic artist’s work in Mashiko, Iga Ueno, Tanegashima, etc. Their work is quite sublimed like a vessel left by a writer. Then, I make the flower part by overlaying flowers. Especially the one where the flowers and the vases are superimposed is not a figure that actually used flowers in flower vases but a technique where you take two pictures on the same slot/film. I thought that it would be nice to have a superposition of subjects in one picture and so I choose that method.

ー All of them have nice fine appearances, but how did you choose the vases?

I choose the one I liked most.

ー So all the vases are part of your own collection, you bought them yourself. Do you have any special thought?

Recently the vase are baked/made in a gas oven but I choose firewood oven ones instead. When you use that technique, the surface of the vase has traces and scratches on them and I think it have more charms that way. There’s a lot of different techniques that use firewood oven and that doesn’t leave traces of the objects too and the more I learned about the different techniques, the more I wanted to learn about pottery in general.
So I choose for this exhibition a variety of vases that were made with different techniques.

ー What was the reaction to the exhibition?

I got asked by a friend that know I am a photographer, is this a painting? I was a little happy. For this series, I thought that it would be nice to have a feeling of incompatibility or incomplete feeling (in a good sense) when you think of “what is called a picture”. In some works I intentionally create a feeling of incompatibility with multiple exposure layers. I can’t really express it, but I’d be happy if you think that it is something beautiful.

ー It looks like a painting on a canvas. Maybe because of the use of Japanese paper. Did you noticed something through this work?

Technically speaking, I learned a lot about the technique and the difficulty of pasting. It was hard work to manipulate such materials. This work is not done on normal photographic paper but it is printing a photograph on Japanese paper on one layer then another and another again…
The selection of the material is important for every art, for example the photograph have to chose the gear and films, for the ceramist he has to chose the right clay to use.
It was very difficult to use japanese paper but as a photographer, thinking about the process and the materials to use is a really good experience. This exhibition had a talk show before it’s opening, and the theme presented was “Praying” and so I wanted to show the relation between humans and objects. After this exhibition I think I’ll still work on that theme.

What is that relation exactly?

I think it is interesting to know more about how things are made for examples likes tea bowls and other tableware for the tea ceremony, bonsai and flower vase that can be used for rituals in shrines and last during all of our lives.
My interest for the Japanese people who are involve in making those kind of products has become more wide and deep.

What kind of work do you want to work on in the future?

This series of flowers is still a new ground for me. So I think I will continue to work on it.

• Terrace Square Photo Exhibition Vol.4
  “Memory of the earth Reminiscence of Clay” Yumiko Miyahama
• Location: 3-22 Kanda Nishikicho, Chiyoda Ward / Terrace Square 1F entrance lobby
• Date & time: October 3rd, 2016 to December 22nd, 2016