JUNKAN Museum

“JUNKAN”: A Creator’s Vision.
Exploring “JUNKAN” through Varied Perspectives, Ideas, and Expressions.

Photographer

Shinichiro Shiraishi

4/11

A photo of the cover to the photo book “Samsara.” The cover is white and features glossy graphical elements in some areas. There are two small holes at the top and two at the bottom that go all the way through the book. The photos in the book are all shot in monochrome.
A photo of a spread from “Samsara.” On the left page is a monochrome photograph, and on the right is text in English. A photo and text about the yard where Derek Jarman spent his later years.
A photo covering a double spread in “Samsara.” There is a house in the background. In the foreground is what appears to be a large, square metal box.
Two photos included in the photo book. Left: A pile of shells. Right: An industrial work of art placed on the ground. The ocean stretches out in the background.
Two photos included in the photo book. Left: A top view of a post and a chain surrounding it. Right: Derek Jarman’s home, photographed from a distance. The monochrome world depicted in the photo is divided by a central vertical line, with the tones in the right half inverted compared to the left.

Portraying Reincarnation Where Nature and Man-Made Elements Blend Together

The photo book Samsara captures images from Derek Jarman’s garden, which I visited four years ago. Located in Dungeness, a village in the southeast of England, Jarman—a film and stage director who also had a passion for horticulture—spent his later years creating a unique garden.

What struck me about Dungeness was the seamless blending of natural and man-made elements. The garden is filled with objects that merge discarded industrial parts with natural materials, creating small, intriguing miniature gardens that are both strange and profoundly meaningful. These scenes seemed to reflect my own perception of nature.

Everyone views nature differently, but for me, it’s not grand landscapes but rather a mix of telegraph poles in the countryside or concrete highway pillars in a pond. It’s the countryside near my grandparents’ house, where the artificial and natural coexist.

Beyond the contrast between natural and artificial, I experienced a compelling blend of life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness, future and past—various dualities merging together and disrupting my sense of time. I aimed to capture this sensation in the photo book.

The photographs are presented in monochrome to highlight the factors contributing to the sensations I felt in Dungeness. I used a technique called solarization on the film photos, allowing positive (life) and negative (death) elements to coexist within each image. I distinguish between film and digital photography: film represents warmth, while digital is more technical. For subjects I am passionate about, I prefer film. Even when scanned and digitized, I believe the warmth of film persists.

The title Samsara means “reincarnation” in Sanskrit. The landscapes evoke feelings of both life and death. To symbolize the cycle of life and death, I arranged the book with alternating blank white pages (representing life) and photo pages (representing death). The book also features numerous circles, including four small holes and round stones collected from the beach, which are motifs on the postcards and reflect the theme of reincarnation.

A cycle means never returning to the same place twice. I envision it as rotating along all axes—X, Y, and Z—transcending the concept of time. It’s like a circle in two dimensions, but a whirlpool in three dimensions. The sensations from Dungeness are closely linked to this concept of circulation.

Photo of Shinichiro Shiraishi
Photographer

Shinichiro Shiraishi

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