Kei Ito, “Sungazing Scroll,” 2023. C-print photogram scroll (sunlight, artist’s breath), 12 inches × 118 feet.
Kei Ito uses photography to examine the intergenerational trauma of nuclear disaster and the possibilities of healing and reconciliation.
Ito’s grandfather, who survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, described the day as if there were “hundreds of suns lighting up the sky.” Ito uses camera-less techniques, exposing light-sensitive material to sunlight for the length of a single breath. In this way, he ties the invisibility of radiation (whether from the sun or nuclear weaponry) to the life-breath of the human body. Ito’s work also connects nuclear war’s impact abroad to the effects of nuclear testing on “downwind - ers” on the American continent. As a result, he poignantly underscores our collective inheritance in the nuclear age, as both the attacker and the attacked suffer at an apocalyptic, global scale. Curator: Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, George Putnam Curator of American Art, Peabody Essex Museum Sponsors : Funding made possible by the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Char- itable Foundation with additional support from the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art and Sara and John Shlesinger
Kei Ito (b. 1991), “Eye Who Witnessed,” 2020 – 22. Chromogenic photogram (sunlight, historical archive), 8 × 10 inches. Kei Ito, “Burning Away,” 2021 – ongoing. 8 silver gelatin chemigram prints (sunlight, honey, various oils), wooden frames, 24 × 20 inches each.
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