路傍の浴槽と出会い、路傍の浴槽の向こう側をつかまえようと撮影を始めてから、10年以上になります。
住宅の建替えやリフォームにより造り付けの浴槽がユニットバスに変更され不要となり、浴槽の特性である高い機能性・耐久性・耐候性を生かしながら屋外で捨てられるように再利用され続けています。
路傍の浴槽は、浴槽の種類から時代の変遷を、再利用のされ方から人間の営みを、野ざらしの状態や変化できない素材から人類のしてきたことと向かっている方向を、それぞれにあらわしています。
冬から春(3月上旬〜４月末)にかけて撮影した路傍の浴槽は、冬の曇天にしか撮影してこなかった以前の私の写真とは少し違い、花が咲き植物が芽吹く季節の中で、より一層奇妙な違和感をはなっています。
Monolith called bathtub in Spring
This photo book features the wayside bathtubs in rural areas that were shown at my solo exhibition held in Photo& Bar nagune, a gallery and bar in Shinjuku’s Golden-gai district, in Tokyo. My series of field bathtub photographs filled every wall of the gallery’s first to third floors from May 20 to July 15, 2019. The idea of this exhibition had been proposed by nagune’s owner Mr. Den at Gallery Ichinichi in Kichijoji, Tokyo, where my solo exhibition was also held in March 2019. To make the most of the opportunity Mr. Den had offered, I revisited the bathtubs and photographed them after the exhibition at Ichinichi had ended.
I took these pictures of wayside bathtubs under a brighter spring sunlight, revealing somewhat different nuances from my past“monolith-like bathtubs”photos, which I had only taken on cloudy winter days.
It’s been more than a decade since I began taking pictures of wayside bathtubs in pursuit of capturing the intangible charm of these enigmatic objects. Some familiar faces have remained in the same place ; some have disappeared. I have also stumbled onto new faces. In all cases, I felt an immense passage of time.
I assume that the changes in the surroundings of each bathtub and the changes in myself came together with a touch of spring in the air and this fusion was reflected in each photograph. After I first published the photo book Monolith called bathtub in 2018, I thought I would close a chapter of this photo series. However, by a curious turn of fate, my journey, monolith-like bathtubs in spring, has finally culminated in this new photo.