NOT SEEN
Digital Photographs
2023 to present
Beyond the postcard perfection of Kyoto’s sacred sites lies another reality—cracked footpaths snaking past mounds of discarded offerings, stagnant ponds, and the quiet erosion of tradition beneath mass tourism. My work lingers in these overlooked margins, documenting the dissonance between spiritual ideal and material decay.
These images frame what temples choose not to display: the labor of maintenance, the entropy of devotion, and nature’s indifferent reclamation of human order. This work turns away from curated vistas toward broken paths and neglected gravesites. The photographs become altars themselves—not to the pristine, but to the necessary imperfections that sustain (and undermine) the illusion of timelessness, where the sacred and the discarded share the same shadow.
In collaboration with Metropolitan Fukujusou, Kyoto
