Exhibition Statement

In recent years, Tamaki Yoshida has continued to explore the relationship between humans, nature, and living beings by turning her lens toward wild animals. Inspired by accidental failures during film development, she has adopted a unique process that incorporates everyday substances—such as detergents and toothpaste—into the chemical development of film.

In this exhibition, her images of fragile yet dignified beasts will come to life within two distinct spaces: the darkroom of the Tōjō Kaikan Photography Laboratory, which has produced countless portraits over the past century, and the underground water room where water—essential for silver gelatin photography—was once carefully calibrated. Here, the animals reveal themselves and seem to speak directly to us.

Exhibition Details

Tamaki Yoshida has long questioned the relationship between humans and nature through her photographic practice, capturing wild animals as her subjects. Tōjō Kaikan, founded over a hundred years ago, has documented human presence through portraiture. This exhibition, Brave New World, is born of the encounter between these two legacies.
Set within the historic Tōjō Kaikan Photography Laboratory—a cornerstone of early Japanese photography—Yoshida’s beasts, both ephemeral and brave, emerge vividly to confront us.

The journey begins in the darkroom, isolated from the outside world. This space embodies the photographic process itself, where idealized visions of nature are fixed into form. It becomes a stage where that process intersects with the presence of animals, captured as photographic subjects—inviting a dialogue between intention and instinct.

Descending into the basement—where water was once purified for developing silver gelatin prints—the narrative reverses. The animals escape from idealized frames and burst forth in all their raw, chaotic beauty. As if mirroring human impact on nature, the film used to depict these creatures has been chemically altered by domestic wastewater. And yet, from this erosion emerges a deeper revelation of their inner strength, cunning, and the tenderness with which Yoshida regards all living beings.

When humanity, despite its sophisticated civilization, turns its gaze toward untamed nature, what is found are beings who survive without adornment—creatures who persist simply as a species.
Even as humans continue to destroy the natural world, these animals endure with unwavering vitality. The acts of destruction and encroachment by humankind are but a part of the greater story—one written by the vast, encompassing forces of nature and life itself. What kind of future narrative might this entwined existence ultimately tell?

Artist Statement

Treated as “pests” in Japan, the living things pictured here eke out an existence adapting to disparate environments, posing a threat to human livelihoods. These creatures and plants are strong. Whereas people can no longer live in the exclusion zone of the Fukushima nuclear accident, it has become like a wildlife park, an environment where nature is firmly established and thrives, even if the life of a single individual is shortened.

While people create all kinds of contrivances and rules in pursuit of a comfortable and prosperous ideal, those that flourish on this earth are perhaps not us humans who have developed sufficiently advanced chemistry and technology, but rather the humble, resilient creatures in these photos.

One day, when I failed to develop a film, I received a great shock along with disappointment. The uneven development of the negative film looked like it was threatening to erode the wild deer captured on the negative. This is exactly what we are doing to nature.

In the shadow of news about major environmental destruction, the impact of domestic wastewater on water pollution is actually very large. Imagining the impact on the natural world of the chemicals we unknowingly discharge every day, I developed negative films of wildlife by mixing them with detergents, cosmetics, toothpaste, and other products I use on a daily basis. As a result, I discovered a world of crumbling yet vivid colors and forms of vigorous life.