shashasha

With inquisitive curiosity and documentarist passion, Shun Kataoka's photographs in the book "Life Works" explore the details and facets of a small garden. Store-bought and makeshift planters nurturing new seeds, grass and weeds covering every inch of open soil, old latticework and forgotten watering cans and other tools hinting at the presence of a human gardener. This is the garden of Kataoka's late grandfather. His fifty years of gardening are still visible years after his death, but nature is slowly erasing his traces. Here in this garden, two different life forces intersect.

“People desire plants. They raise them, and co-exist with them. People come and go and places change their appearance. This happens countless times, not only in this garden, but in a great number of places. Does the repetition and circular flow of things continue without end? To look intently at this garden’s limited space is to know the unceasing intertwining of people and plants. When I close my eyes and touch the greenery, these boundaries intermingle. At that moment, I am in a dwelling where all life blends into me.”
― from Shun Kataoka’s afterword

In addition to Shun Kataoka’s afterword, the book also includes an essay by Tatsushi Fujihara (Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University). All texts in Japanese & English.