Toshiya Murakoshi "When Silence Learned to Breathe"
Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film
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Toshiya Murakoshi
Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film is pleased to present When Silence Learned to Breathe, a solo exhibition of the work of Toshiya Murakoshi, from Friday, December 19, 2025 through Saturday, January 31, 2026. The show features the latest photographs from a series he has continued to shoot in his home prefecture of Fukushima since 2011. Following Player & Bark, Burn After Seeing, Burn After Seeing, An Eventual Saturation, The Wind Prays for Sublime Stillness, this fifth series comprises 15 photographs taken between January 2019 and December 2020.
The nuclear accident triggered by the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 released radioactive materials, confronting us with the presence in our environment of substances imperceptible to our senses. It also caused broader reflection on how much we overlook or fail to perceive in the course of daily life.
For Murakoshi, the act of seeing itself is a crucial element of his photographic practice. When he looked at the familiar landscape of his home prefecture of Fukushima, he asked himself what had changed after the disaster and what had remained the same. He explains that to approach this honestly, he had to simply focus on the landscape before him without letting outside information or media narratives shape his expectations, and to listen carefully to what those places conveyed. For a photographer born and raised in Fukushima who had been working there long before the disaster, the sight of evacuation zones and restricted areas marked the beginning of a painful awareness that compelled him to reconsider, at the most basic level, what it meant to continue taking photographs in this place.
What do we try to see, and what do we choose not to see? Murakoshi keeps that question in mind as he works, and it has become a fundamental motivation for his practice. The images in this exhibition invite us to reflect on the history of Fukushima, the memories carried by its people, and the act of seeing itself.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a book of works from the previous series The Wind Prays for Sublime Stillness will be published by ZEN FOTO GALLERY.
The nuclear accident triggered by the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 released radioactive materials, confronting us with the presence in our environment of substances imperceptible to our senses. It also caused broader reflection on how much we overlook or fail to perceive in the course of daily life.
For Murakoshi, the act of seeing itself is a crucial element of his photographic practice. When he looked at the familiar landscape of his home prefecture of Fukushima, he asked himself what had changed after the disaster and what had remained the same. He explains that to approach this honestly, he had to simply focus on the landscape before him without letting outside information or media narratives shape his expectations, and to listen carefully to what those places conveyed. For a photographer born and raised in Fukushima who had been working there long before the disaster, the sight of evacuation zones and restricted areas marked the beginning of a painful awareness that compelled him to reconsider, at the most basic level, what it meant to continue taking photographs in this place.
What do we try to see, and what do we choose not to see? Murakoshi keeps that question in mind as he works, and it has become a fundamental motivation for his practice. The images in this exhibition invite us to reflect on the history of Fukushima, the memories carried by its people, and the act of seeing itself.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a book of works from the previous series The Wind Prays for Sublime Stillness will be published by ZEN FOTO GALLERY.
Schedule | Dec 19 (Fri) 2025-Jan 31 (Sat) 2026 Opening Hours Information
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| Fee | Free | ||||
| Website | https://www.takaishiigallery.com/en/archives/41554/ | ||||
| Venue | Taka Ishii Gallery Photography / Film http://www.takaishiigallery.com/ | ||||
| Location | 2F Axis Bldg., 5-17-1 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032 | ||||
| Access | 8 minute walk from exit 3 at Roppongi Station on the Hibiya or Toei Oedo line, 8 minute walk from exit 1 at Roppongi-itchome Station on the Namboku line. | ||||
| Phone | 03-6447-1035 | ||||
| Related images | Click on the image to enlarge it |
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