Kanta Nomura’s Artist book “The Yoshida Dormitory Old Darkroom” is now available!

06/15/2022

Kanta Nomura’s new artist book “The Yoshida Dormitory Old Darkroom” is now available.

While continuing to document the 108-year-old Yoshida Dormitory of Kyoto University, the oldest existing student dormitory in Japan, Nomura discovered an old darkroom that still exists in the dormitory. By developing the photographs Nomura had recorded on the photographic paper left in the darkroom, he attempted to burn the time and memories that had accumulated in the Yoshida Dormitory. In this exhibition, original prints produced in the old darkroom will be unveiled.

Nomura received the RPS mentorship program and worked on the piece “The Yoshida Dormitory Students’ History” in the experimental workshop Atlas Lab “AKINA BOOKS Workshop: Stillness and Motion – Cinematic Editing and Dummy Books” held at RPS in March 2018. This project is about the same “Yoshida Dormitory” as the current exhibition. As the situation regarding the continuation of Yoshida Dormitory was changing, he continued to produce dummies along with the trend, and produced 106 copies as an artist’s book, completely handmade. The book was shortlisted for the LUMA RENCONTRES HISOTRY BOOK AWARD ARLES (France) in 2020, the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards (Paris and New York) in 2021, and many others. He was awarded the memorable first ANDY ROCHELLI GRANT by CESURA (Italy), and preparations are underway for a trade edition.

This time, it will be a photo collection of “The Yoshida Dormitory Old Darkroom,” a work that is also a sequel to “The Yoshida Dormitory Students’ History”.

　It was the spring of 2019 when I first opened the door to the darkroom in the Yoshida dormitory. This darkroom had been unattended for more than 30 years, dusty and like a junkyard. In fact, it had been more than ten years since I started taking pictures of Yoshida Dormitory, but even though I knew of the existence of the darkroom, I had never bothered to open the door.

　This was because it was located in a particularly dark place at the end of a long corridor, and the darkness that peeked through the door was secretive and eerie.

　The time suddenly came. I pushed open the hard door of the darkroom. In the dimness, a ray of light leaked through a torn blackout curtain, and dust danced quietly. The air was tranquil but heavy, as if it had been vacuum-packed for a long time. The clutter had been abandoned at a certain point in time. And among the rubble-like oversized garbage, I found photographic paper from that time, covered with dust and mold.

　What if I could burn new photos of Yoshida Dormitory onto the old photographic paper that had absorbed so much time? With this idea in mind, I restored the old darkroom, which had been neglected for a long time, so that it could once again be used as a darkroom.

　In this special darkroom, I began printing.

　The old photographic paper formed an image on the silver particles in the developing solution. The photosensitive agent in the photographic paper had deteriorated, and the shading of the blacks and the sharpness of the image were different from the usual results. It was frustrating, but it was a strange sensation of something overlapping with the photograph I had taken.

　I felt as if I were facing the memories that had accumulated in this place, and that my record of more than ten years was coming into focus with the memories of the past. Although located in a student dormitory, this isolated space became even quieter at dawn.

　As if to signal the beginning of a play, the morning sun began to faintly leak through the dark curtains.

　The cool night air still lay in the long corridor.

Photographer: Kanta Nomura

Kanta Nomura「The Yoshida Dormitory Old Darkroom」

194Pages
Size:205mm x 263mm x 35mm
Weight : 830g
Edition : 108 (all editions signed)
Language : English and Japanese combined
Photography, editing, printing, binding design : Kanta Nomura
All 108 copies of the cuts used in Table 3 have different patterns.
The concept, storyline and art direction of this book was developed in collaboration with Yumi Goto, Reminders Photography Stronghold.