On the Occasion of the Exhibition

Photographer: Miho Kajioka.

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Our first meeting took place in Paris, where she was living at the time. I was about to return to Japan, flustered and distracted, and despite my impolite demeanor, she carefully unwrapped a bundle she had brought with her. With quiet, almost ritualistic gestures, she opened what she called a "book"—a box containing paper—and slowly turned from one folded page to another. The book’s unique binding concealed its printed text on the reverse sides of folded pages, making it readable only by peeking inside.

The monochrome photographs on those pages floated like fragments of small memories, gently suspended in space, inviting the viewer’s gaze to wander. Both melancholic and delicate, this beautiful book touched something deep inside. It was born from her time as a reporter during the Great East Japan Earthquake, when she was immersed in the urgency of news coverage. From the weight of things that couldn’t be conveyed by the media, something quietly slipped out—something that had filled a box and was ready to be released.

Those emotions and memories became the catalyst for Kajioka’s return to the world of art, which she had distanced herself from since her university days.

“I heard a click, as if something had switched,” she recalls.

Through photography, Kajioka seems to depict landscapes of memory that transcend the self and others—landscapes woven from time that cannot be separated from us.

As I turned the overlapping fragments in this book—born five years after the earthquake—I found myself in tears before I realized it. Something I longed to touch. Something I never could.

Just like unexpectedly encountering cherry blossoms each spring, I want this work to travel—through chance connections and possibilities—transforming ephemeral, uncertain emotions into landscapes of memory. I hope it intersects with everyday lives, through meetings and journeys sparked by this book.

It feels right to hold this exhibition every March, around this time of year—somewhere, anywhere, whether on a small or grand scale, with a single piece or many, in private or public, in Japan or abroad.

I believe this work will guide us to those places.

It has now been 14 years since the Great East Japan Earthquake, and 30 years since the Kobe Earthquake. By some mysterious timing, the clock has aligned, and I’m deeply grateful to begin this project here in the city of Kobe.

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Naomi Masaki, Spring 2025
On the Occasion of Miho Kajioka’s "And, do you still hear the peacocks?" 2025