TDC Annual Awards1992, Members' Judges' Special Prize: Kijuro Yahagi
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Publishing Book of A de S
Publishing Inc. Though I am Japanese, Japan herself still carries a feeling of "otherness" for me. In fact, I don't see much point in even trying to fathom this monstrous entity called Japan. And so for me, everything I say and everything I do must be prefaced with a conditional "for me..." This is the only way I can ever hope to chisel out a little piece of this stranger Japan that I can examine or, in some tentative way, call my own. I aspire to a kind of "transparency," to a state of being unshielded and non-obstructive so that I may pass through the barrier of illusion which allows us the notion that we already know a great deal through hearsay, habit and custom, the illusion which allows us to exist without experiencing the pain of the real world. Bringing about this transparent state means obtaining a direct and indefinitely close contact with both the matter and the symbols of expression. If I have achieved real transparency, I am then in a position to filter these materials through myself and let them percolate to the surface and assume new forms. Whatever is produced as a result of this process is an actual fragment of the alien body. By accumulating enough of these little fragments, I can carve out a new outline of this stranger. This "for me..." Approach to the work, with Japan being the ultimate stranger al the while, requires of me a heightened awareness of my own means of existence.
Kijuro Yahagi |
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