Next Exhibition Gallery Yugen

Yoko Ishii　Antonin Lainé

“Abandoned Kingdom”

Saturday, April 15, 2023 to Sunday, April 30, 2023

12:00-19:00　

Until 17:00 on the last day only

—

This exhibition is curated by Marie Lelièvre, photo editor and vice-president of the association “Aux Docks d’Arles”- Art gallery in Arles (France) .

« Abandoned Kingdoms » is a transcription of two visual worlds by Yoko Ishii capturing deer in a world with no humans around and Antonin Lainé, documenting for years industrial wastelands and mines in Europe.  

Ishii chooses the timing and the framing to create a deserted world where only deer are visible.  Lainé takes his camera into places that have become inaccessible, where conditions for photographing are limited to the extreme.  What the two photographers have in common is their special relationship to nature, whether mineral or animal.. It is a link with time that has frozen, still bearing witness to the past of industrial mining, or harbinger of a future where nature would reclaim its rights.

After France, Arles in 2021, Clamecy and Moustiers Sainte-Marie in 2022, this exhibition will be shown for the first time in Japan.

 【Artist Profile】　　　　  

Deer photographer Yoko Ishii, based in Kanagawa, Japan, visited Nara two weeks after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, and had a vision of a post-human era when watching deers wandering at dawn in the deserted town. She is now expanding the shooting area nationwide and depicting the ambivalent relationship between humans and deers. Her works have been exhibited in Tokyo, Osaka, Nara, Germany, New Zealand and France.（http://www.yokoishii.com）

Antonin Lainé is a french freelance photographer and press photo editor based in Paris. Much of his personal work focuses on abandoned mines, industry and wastelands. He is documenting the end of the mining industry in Europe since 2004, abandoned sites and traces left by the workers. Other projects include works on urbanism and cities’ evolution. His photos have been exhibited in France, Laos and Mozambique.  (https://www.instagram.com/antoninlaine/)