Seeing Nuclear Issues in Daguerrotypes: An Interview with Takashi Arai

Abstract

Takashi Arai (b. 1978) is a Japanese photographer based in Kawasaki. He works with the daguerreotype technique as a “monumental container,” as he calls it, to explore nuclear issues and the deep connections among Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Fukushima. He is a member of the Atomic Photographers Guild, an international collective of artists dedicated to making visible all facets of the nuclear age. His daguerreotypes have been on exhibit in a variety of museums and galleries across the United States, Europe, and Japan. He took part in the well-known exhibition In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11, which traveled to the United States and has been seen at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts; the Japan Society, in New York City; and, more recently, the Asia Society in Houston. In 2016, he received the 41st Kimura Ihei Award for his first monograph, “Monuments” (PGI, 2015). Arai is also the winner of the Source-Cord Prize (UK, 2014), and the Newcomer’s Award (2016), from the Photographic Society of Japan.