shashasha

In a world rapidly turning towards the digital in every aspect, Takashi Arai is one of the world’s few remaining artists who choose to express their artistic vision with the daguerreotype silver plate photographic process.
Due to the confines of a technique that does not allow image duplication or photographic printing, each individual plate becomes an unique object of art.
Arai has been creating daguerreotypes for many years. Rather than a nostalgic reproduction of an outdated method, Arai recognised the strengths of the daguerreotype for capturing the essence of his subjects more authentically than modern photography would allow, and turned it into a viable medium of his own. This time, Arai employs a style that differs from the original daguerreotypes.
This book compiles reproductions of daguerreotypes taken on journeys to nuclear monuments in Fukushima, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and America since 2011 and includes texts by Arai as well as critics Kikuji Kawada and Mariko Takeuchi.

• extract from the publisher’s description