「Máni」

Keiju Kita 1st Photo book

It was at a scheduled blackout right after the 3/11 disaster that I became interested in streetlamps, a motif in my work.
Looking up at the streetlamps that stood in town with no light on, I was impressed by their unique figures,
which looked as if they were death masks of the electric light, an impression I could not avoid.
After that, irresistibly drawn to this motif of the streetlamps, I found myself single-mindedly taking their photographs as a portrait, overlapping those streetlamps with the people who had influenced me as a persona in my life̶my family and friends, people I got help from, and people I once gave my heart to.
When I think back on it now, it may have been that I was thinking about what losing the people who were precious to us really meant.
* Máni is the god of the moon in Norse mythology.
 
街灯というモチーフに興味を持ち始めたのは3.11の直後にあった計画停電の時だった。
その当時夜になっても光を灯さず街に佇む街灯を見上げた時、
その個性的な姿はまるで電気の死顔を形どったデスマスクのように私には思えてならなかった。
それ以降、この街灯というモチーフに否応なく惹かれた私は、家族、友人、世話になった人、かつて思いを寄せた人たちなど自身に影響を与えた私の人生のペルソナ(登場人物)たちを重ね合わせポートレートとして無心に撮影していた。
今思えば大切な人たちを失うということがどういうことなのかと考えていたのかもしれない。
※Máni(マニ)とは、北欧神話の月の神のこと