shashasha

Having spent six years to visit more than 40 traditional festivals and ritual ceremonies throughout Japan, Japanese photographer Kisei Kobayashi’s book “Primitive Cries in the Night” presents a powerful visual journey to the borders of our world and into moments when the present overlaps with hundreds of years of history.

The many different rituals he captured – some in the mountains, others near the sea; many involving fire and smoke, costumes and collective performances – take place at night, the time when “a mysterious feeling takes over, and the people, sceneries and sights in front of you transform. Time and space become twisted and our world begins to blend with another world. The scenes you see could be 100 years ago or 1000 years or 100 years into the future. A rift appears in the darkness, and we are pulled into different world.”