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showcase #13 “Human signs”
curated by minoru shimizu
Goro Miyashita | Yusaku Yamazaki
2025.04.11(fri.)— 05.11(sun.)
open on fri., sat., & sun. 12:00-18:00
appointments are available on weekdays
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→Click here to see previous “showcase” curated by minoru shimizu.
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showcase #13, 2025
Human Signs
For the past few years, the showcase has taken the form of a two-person show, with a newcomer and an artist from the past. When I choose two artists, I do not think of a common concept or compatibility. Rather, a concept emerges from the combination of the two photographers. Sometimes the two photographers are complementary, and sometimes they are contrasting in how they express the concept.
Goro Miyashita came to prominence in 2017, when he received the Canon New Cosmos of Photography Honorable Mention (selected by Minoru Shimizu). It is said that “Eyes speak as much as a mouth” or “I suddenly feel a gaze,” and Miyashita takes this literally in his subject matter. The photographed eyes are not looking at the camera, but their pupils are open, indicating that the photographer is shooting with pinpoint light on the subject’s eyes in the dark. In other words, these are photographs of eyes that speak volumes, eyes that direct a gaze. The power of photography as a machine is on full display. Stripped of their silent eloquence, the eyes are shown as just eyes, looking at nothing in particular.
Yusaku Yamazaki, who was also featured in Showcase #4 in 2015, first gained attention with an honorable mention in the 2013 Canon New Cosmos of Photography (selected by Minoru Shimizu), followed by an Excellence Award the following year. This time he presents a renewed and remixed version of his debut series “Saiko”. The “Saiko” series, named after Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” deals with the theme of signs, traces, and glimpses of invisible things (especially people) that photography likes to produce, and continues to question the rhetoric of omens and traces, future and past through photography.
April, 2025
Minoru Shimizu
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Goro Miyashita
The eyes are not good at lying.
The eyes are vulnerable and honest.
Contrary to the psychology of not wanting others to know one’s inner self,
the eyes reflect the human heart as it is, no matter how much we try to hide it.
Joy, sadness, anger, surprise.
Love, hate, jealousy.
Loneliness, disgust, confusion, impatience, fear.
All kinds of complex human emotions are precisely reflected in the two eyes.
If the act of taking a photograph reveals the essence of human nature,
then the ultimate portrait is the human eyes.
The ultimate organ that makes us human. There is nothing like the naked eyes.
Age, gender, occupation, disability, nationality.
Overcoming all these boundaries, photographer Goro Miyashita has created a series of portraits of 108 diverse eyes,
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Yusaku Yamazaki
Mystery Deepens as Missing Schoolgirl Found After 77 Days in “Kamikakushi” Incident
A 17-year-old high school girl from Mobara, Chiba Prefecture, who had been missing since July 11, 2013, was discovered on September 26 at a shrine near her home. Found severely weakened and weighing nearly half her previous weight, she showed signs of mild dehydration but had no injuries.
According to her own account, she had been hiding in the shrine and surviving on vegetables from nearby fields. However, questions remain about how she managed to endure such harsh conditions for 77 days. The delay in her discovery and inconsistencies in her testimony have fueled speculation online, with many referring to the case as a modern-day example of kamikakushi—a mysterious disappearance attributed to supernatural forces. The truth behind her ordeal remains unknown.