Exhibition/event has ended.
Aki Goto "Tabigori (Journey and Ritual Purification): The Non-linear Landscape "
Fugensha
Finished
SHARE
Artists
Aki Goto
Fugensha is pleased to present the solo exhibition of GOTO AKI Tabigori (Journey and Ritual Purification): The Non-linear Landscape from Friday, October 3 to Sunday, October 26, 2025.
GOTO AKI is a Tokyo based photographer born in Kawasaki City in 1972. He graduated from Sophia University's Faculty of Economics, Department of Management in 1995 and worked for Marubeni after. In 1999, he entered Tokyo College of Photography and started on a career in photography. Drawing upon a sense of the Earth's scale from his around-the-world journey from 1993 to 1994, he started documenting natural landscapes across Japan. His landscape photography, oscillating between the detailed and the abstract as if traversing his inner self and the external cosmos, and was published as terra (Akaaka-sha, 2019). Based on the work he received The Japan Photographic Society Newcomer Award in 2020.
This work, Tabigori: The Non-Linear Landscapes, emerged from GOTO's project undertaken since 2023, walking the Kii Road, one of the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes. It comprises photographs from four journeys: November 2023, January and August 2024, and January 2025. The Kii Road is a pilgrimage route of approximately 300 kilometres from Tenmabashi in Osaka to Tanabe in Wakayama, leading to the Kumano Sanzan (Three Sacred Mountains of Kumano). Since the 7th century, it has been traversed by nobles, poets, ascetic practitioners, and others.
The series of photographs were primarily captured using an interval timer, which automatically triggered the shutter every 15 seconds. Along the route south to Kumano, fragments of 24,000 images—captured amidst backlighting where the photographer's gaze and camera merge— showing the farmland, the asphalt, and the light piercing moss-covered alleys. These convey a sense of resonance between the photographer's body, engaged in the landscapes of mountains and fields, and the primal act of walking.
Moreover, the stone monuments and shrines appearing along the journey woven from artefacts and nature become triggers freely traversing present and past, liberating the photographer from linear timelines. The images generated whilst traversing 300 kilometers simultaneously evoked memories accumulated within the photographer's body and, as nameless images liberated from specific times and places, became connectors to new worlds.
GOTO states that ‘The fragments revealed through walking and photographing are not mere records; they can become catalysts for imagining the future.’ The landscape photographs obtained through the physical practice of a solitary photographer—journey of purification (Tabigori)—evoking a kind of transformation-like state through long-distance walking along pilgrimage routes, transcend individual memory and experience, inviting us into an invisible world of imagination.
GOTO AKI is a Tokyo based photographer born in Kawasaki City in 1972. He graduated from Sophia University's Faculty of Economics, Department of Management in 1995 and worked for Marubeni after. In 1999, he entered Tokyo College of Photography and started on a career in photography. Drawing upon a sense of the Earth's scale from his around-the-world journey from 1993 to 1994, he started documenting natural landscapes across Japan. His landscape photography, oscillating between the detailed and the abstract as if traversing his inner self and the external cosmos, and was published as terra (Akaaka-sha, 2019). Based on the work he received The Japan Photographic Society Newcomer Award in 2020.
This work, Tabigori: The Non-Linear Landscapes, emerged from GOTO's project undertaken since 2023, walking the Kii Road, one of the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes. It comprises photographs from four journeys: November 2023, January and August 2024, and January 2025. The Kii Road is a pilgrimage route of approximately 300 kilometres from Tenmabashi in Osaka to Tanabe in Wakayama, leading to the Kumano Sanzan (Three Sacred Mountains of Kumano). Since the 7th century, it has been traversed by nobles, poets, ascetic practitioners, and others.
The series of photographs were primarily captured using an interval timer, which automatically triggered the shutter every 15 seconds. Along the route south to Kumano, fragments of 24,000 images—captured amidst backlighting where the photographer's gaze and camera merge— showing the farmland, the asphalt, and the light piercing moss-covered alleys. These convey a sense of resonance between the photographer's body, engaged in the landscapes of mountains and fields, and the primal act of walking.
Moreover, the stone monuments and shrines appearing along the journey woven from artefacts and nature become triggers freely traversing present and past, liberating the photographer from linear timelines. The images generated whilst traversing 300 kilometers simultaneously evoked memories accumulated within the photographer's body and, as nameless images liberated from specific times and places, became connectors to new worlds.
GOTO states that ‘The fragments revealed through walking and photographing are not mere records; they can become catalysts for imagining the future.’ The landscape photographs obtained through the physical practice of a solitary photographer—journey of purification (Tabigori)—evoking a kind of transformation-like state through long-distance walking along pilgrimage routes, transcend individual memory and experience, inviting us into an invisible world of imagination.
Schedule | Oct 3 (Fri) 2025-Oct 26 (Sun) 2025 Opening Hours Information
| ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | https://fugensha.jp/events/251003goto/ | ||||
| Venue | Fugensha https://fugensha.jp/about/eng.html | ||||
| Location | 5-3-12 Shimomeguro, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-0064 | ||||
| Access | 17 minute walk from the West exit of Meguro Station on the Tokyu Meguro, Namboku, Toei Mita or JR Yamanote line; From the West exit of JR Meguro Station, take the Tokyu bus and get off at Moto Keibajo Mae. The venue is 1 minute walk from there. | ||||
| Phone | 03-6264-3665 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
Back to Articles
SHARE
No comments yet