shashasha

Images that bring back latent memories lurking in the depths of human beings; images like daydreams, images that run through the senses like a lantern, illuminating lost places of the unconscious. Shigemitsu Hayashi’s first photobook, titled “I-Shi-Ki” (or “Consciousness” in English), treats consciousness and the unconscious as two sides of the same coin. What he has captured may be beauty or ugliness, fear or peace, familiar or unknown, or perhaps all at once. Uncertainty is the essence of human nature.

“A flash that cuts through the darkness.
A momentary instant that returns to my consciousness,
feeling fear at the mysterious beauty.

Like the sun and the moon illuminating each other in the expanse of the universe. From shadow to light. From brightness to darkness.
It is there that I find myself.”
— from Shigemitsu Hayashi’s afterword

All texts included in Japanese and English translation.