For the past ten years, Japanese photographer Yuki Shimizu has been photographed alongside rivers, ponds, lakes and other bodies of water. Water is the giver of life, both literally and metaphorically. Many of the places Shimizu has photographed have deep ties to folklore and local myths, serving as sites for mystical beings and fantastic stories. Listening closely to the history embedded in each landscape, Shimizu’s “Shore” uses photographs and lyrical texts to form a riveting, layered space and time somewhere between real and unreal, populated by stories and people who may or may not exist.
In the soil of the garden lived shining green bugs
Those intertidal sea creatures have no eyes, no mouth,
just a transparent sack-like body filled with algae
Upon eating as much algae as they need right after birth
The creatures close their mouth and then let it degenerate
Thereafter they live on nutrients produced by the algae through photosynthesis When the tides fall, they rise to the surface and soak up the sun
When the tides rise, they submerge to keep from washing away
In the garden, while separated from the sea, they do the same
Diving into the sand when comes time of the tide
Asked how they know the right time
you replied,”it must be the algae that remember” […]
All text included in Japanese & English.
