Shimakage - Chieko Shiraishi

Shimakage is a photographic journey into Chieko’s memory, exploring her reflections, experiences and fascination with the many small outer islands which surround Japan. Shimakage, literally translated as ‘Island Shadow’, brings together varying images taken from Japan’s surrounding islands and coastal areas such as Sakushima, Shingu and Kihoku Mie. The resulting images are gelatin silver prints which utilise an old retouching technique known as ‘zokin-gake’ or ‘rag-wiping’ which was previously popular amongst amateur photographers in Japan during the 1920s and 30s. As a result, the images beautifully evoke a faded memory, the landscapes appear and disappear within the image embodying ‘faint signals’ from the photographers own memory, standing as faint silhouettes against the backdrop of an obscured memory.

The eeriness of the shots drew me in at Paris Photo. The style in which the scenes have been set and shot set the islands up to be abandoned, resulting in a feeling of unease. Shooting from memory despite the scene being directly in front of you can lead to a manipulation of the environment based on what you remember, hence why I wouldn’t categorise this project as documentary and more as an imagined place. It implies a mental block with the photographer unable to access the full memory but can only shoot what is physically in front of them. This specific image was presented with a white border in a small frame at Paris Photo, catching the eye from the massive prints that dominated the space around it. Presentation doesn’t have to be sizeably grand, it can be simple and still have a desired impact.