Notice: 3331 Arts Chiyoda will close on March 31, 2023; AIR 3331 will continue to operate as an artist-in-residence.
AIR 3331 is currently accepting applications for residencies starting on April 1, 2023 and on. Apply here >>>

Artists

Ida Taavitsainen

Ida Taavitsainen

Residence Period: 2015.01.08-2015.02.07

Ida Taavitsainen

(right) "A Patchwork of Memories" artwork closeup
(left) "A Patchwork of Memories" Exhibition view, 3331 Arts Chiyoda (Feb. 4-7, 2015)
(profile image) by Sohei Yasui

Profile

Ida Taavitsainen (b. 1987) is a Finnish-born photographer who recently graduated from the Photography MA programme at Royal College of Art in London. Her practice has been strongly influenced by moving abroad in her early twenties and in her work she is interested in questions of presence and absence, distance and closeness, memories, loss and family relations.

Her first photo book, The Memory of My Wardrobe, was published by Booth-Clibborn Editions in November 2014 and she has showed her work in exhibitions in the UK, Finland, Latvia and Cambodia. The residency is kindly supported by The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.

Residence Activity

During her residency at 3331 Ida Taavitsainen has created a piece of work inspired by the layers of history of the blue boro-garments from Northern Japan and based on the aestheticized view of Japan she had as a child. The series of images consists of cyanotypes made out of images photographed on her phone during her one month long exploration of Tokyo.

"As a child Japan was my dream destination. One of my favourite books was a photography book titled 'The Four Seasons of Japan'. It was the most beautiful book I knew, with soft focus images of cherry blossoms, autumn leaves and carps swimming in ponds.

I looked at the book recently and the magic of the photographs was gone, but my urge to come and stay in Japan for a longer time was still there.

During my first weeks of my artist residency I walked around Tokyo just to get an understanding of the city. I didn't have my camera with me, but was taking notes with the camera on my phone. I took images of things that inspired and intrigued me, things I wanted to return to and photograph "properly". The things I photographed were often beautiful places or objects that reminded me of the idea of Japan I had as a child and soon I realised that the images stored on the memory card of my phone had become my work. These images are not only documentations of what I've seen; they are also a visualisation of memories from my past.

Inspired by the boro-textiles from Northern Japan I have created a piece of work during my artist residency of my month spent in Tokyo. There are several layers in this story, just like there are in the patched up boro textiles. Boro is patched clothing made of multiple small cloths, made purely for practical purposes to keep warm. Boro reused fabrics over generations and so they hold the memories and traces of a family. Just like these textiles a photograph is also a keepsake of a time and place and a record of something that once was.

The images form a visual diary and are printed as cyanotypes, one of the oldest printing methods in photography. All the books I've read about Japan always mention how in Japan is a mixture of old and new and by choosing this method of reproducing my images old and new meet: the images are shot on a phone with the latest technology, but the printing method goes back to the early days of photography. The blue colour of the cyanotype also alludes to boro that were predominantly made out of blue fabric.

To add yet another layer to the work, all the images are printed on papers left behind by other artists who have done the residency before me - like this there is a trace of the choices of previous resident artists as well as a another nod towards the craft of boro where everything was recycled and no piece of material was left unused."

PREV  |  NEXT