Blue Affair by Kosuke Okahara
“Recurring recollections of his time in a town started infiltrating the dreams of a photographer, pushing him to return to the dream and leaving reality.”
“blue affair” is an experimental short film and a photo book based on the photographer’s dreams of his time spent in the town called Koza.
In the pictures captured in Koza by Kosuke Okahara, I don’t see the photographer. It’s not because he was the one photographing, or for some other physical reasons. I don’t find superficial emotions emanating through his lens from either the subjects or from the photographer. This might not make sense, but it feels to me as though while the photographer was with his subjects, looking directly at them, he was actually observing from another realm. What is left are pictures free from superficial emotions such as warmth and sadness and left with an almost unbearable weight of presence. Without a doubt, in those moments, while sharing the same space, he was observing from some other dimension.
- He was surely in the dreams.
Tatsuya Ishikawa / Creative director
(An excerpt from the afterword of the book)
Kosuke Okahara:
Born in 1980 in Tokyo. Based in Kyoto, Japan. Represented by POLKA galerie in Paris and Only Photography gallery in Berlin. Okahara grew up in Tokyo and started his career as a photographer after college graduation where he studied education. He has been pursuing the stories based on his theme “Ibasyo” which, in Japanese, refers to physical and emotional space in which one can exist. In 2010, He has been awarded W. Eugene Smith Fellowship with his long-term project “Ibasyo” on Japanese girls who self-harm. He was also awarded Getty Images Grant with his works on post Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2012. His long-term work on Colombia also received Pierre & Alexandra Boulat grant in 2014. He has published 6 monographs and some art books. His 10 meter scroll art book “Vanishing existence” was exhibited at the art book exhibition in Bavarian State Library in Munich along with artists such as Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Keith Haring and became a part of permanent collections. One of his series “Almost Paradise” was also exhibited at “100 years Leica photography” shows among few Japanese photographers. His works have been exhibited in museums, art fairs, and international photo festivals such as Kunsthal in Rotterdam, Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Quai Branly Museum, C/O Berlin, Tokyo Photographic art museums, Paris Photo, AIPAD, Kyotographie, etc.
He continues shooting the stories that touch him.
Find out more about Kosuke
Instagram Website
You can get a copy of Blue Affair at Vacilando Bookshop in Bangkok, Thailand or through his website.
