Vanishing existence – Photographs by Kosuke Okahara
Hanging from September 17, 2024.
Project Vanishing Existence
Made in 2007, the series Vanishing Existence explores the daily life of leper villages located mainly in southern China. Established in the 1950s, these isolated villages were designed to accommodate people suffering from leprosy, quarantine them and guarantee them treatment. Of the 1200 villages initially created, only 600 were still in operation in the early 2000s.
This photographic project was born from an observation, that of the progressive disappearance of these villages due to the advanced age of their inhabitants. However, since the complete elimination of leprosy is progressing in China, there is a risk that the history of these villages, and of the people who lived there, will also disappear. Kosuke Okahara's photographs thus seek to bear witness to these marginalized existences, without dwelling on the physical after-effects left by the disease.
The artist travels for a month and a half and visits several villages, accompanied by a friend and a translator. He then chose to publish his photos first in the form of a book with a traditional hand-sewn binding and then in the form of a horizontal scroll, thus taking up the oldest Chinese writing supports, thus anchoring his work in the Chinese cultural tradition.
