Ai  Hoshino

星野 藍

 

Photographer , Graphic & UI Designer, Calligrapher , Writer

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写真家、デザイナー、書道家、ライター

 

 

 

"Mukaunosato"

A utopia without artifice, left to nature.

This is what haikyo are: a utopia born without human intent.

 

無何有郷。

自然の侭で、何の作為もない理想郷、と云う意味だ。

廃墟とは、人の意図とは関係なく生まれた理想郷のように見える。

 

 

 

"Haikyo" that exist in Japan and around the world.
Nothing but the location of anything.
Location have lost the meaning of the things that exist.
To the end of the world.
Such photograph.

 

日本と世界中に存在する廃墟。
何もないけどなにもある場所。
存在する事の意味をなくした場所。
何処迄も遠くへ行きたい。

 

 

 

My publication

Hakkaku Bunka Kaikan "Chernobyl/Fukushima"
Sansai books "Phantom Ruins"
Tokyo Kirara Sha "Former Communal Heritage"
Genkosha “Unapproved State Abkhazia”

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著書

八画文化会館『チェルノブイリ／福島』
三才ブックス『幽幻廃墟』
東京キララ社『旧共産遺産』
玄光社『未承認国家 アブハジア』
 

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April 22, 2007.

 

Maki died. She fell from the sky and killed herself. 

 

I can still remember the moment it happened. 9:25 a.m., the 23rd of the month. The call from father. My legs crumpling beneath me. My mind going blank, my senses swimming. 

 

Like an icy hand caressing my cheek, reality had reached out and touched me for the very first time.

 

She and I share so much and yet so little. She was the girl on the other side of the mirror. She had been with me since I was born, wherever I went, whatever I did. I could not remember a time without her.

 

She was beautiful. Even though we shared the same blood, we were so different. Those narrow yet sparkling eyes. Those eyelashes so long that they seemed to make a sound each time she blinked. That skin as white and clear as bisque. That shimmering mane of straight black hair. All of it wrapped around that crafty mind, constantly scheming. 

 

I was just a little jealous. She was so perfect. I wanted to be just like her…and yet no matter how hard I reached, she remained one step beyond my grasp.

 

I lost her and a gaping space opened in my heart. Suddenly I could no longer draw as I did before. There was nothing left that I wanted to draw.

 

That was when a friend told me about Gunkanjima, a deserted island in Nagasaki. An island covered in ruins. 

 

I felt something drawing me there. At last, in November of 2007 I set foot on it. I had taken my long-neglected film camera off the shelf and armed it with a 50 mm lens. My 7-inch rubber soles crunched against the ground.

 

And it was there that I sensed life and death with violent immediacy. The town was dead, the buildings discarded husks. And yet the place still seemed to hum with some strange energy. With life.

 

I could still hear breathing on the wind. I was sure that if I turned around, I might still spy one of the children who once ran laughing down these streets. They would not be forgotten. They could not be forgotten.

 

Yes. That was it. She was there, with me.

 

She lives on inside me.

 

I want to believe.

 

Thus began my journey through the ruins to find her again.