HOW MANY DAYS?

Artist Statement about “HOW MANY DAYS?”

On September 11, 2001, I woke up to the radio saying two airplanes hit the Twin Towers and caused a fire. Immediately taking a glance at burning buildings surrounded by smoke from the window, I climbed up the red ladder to the rooftop of my apartment building. It was the moment that  I briefly looked at the other side that people screamed, and then one of the towers fell slowly without any sound. In the afternoon, I went to a supermarket and found out so many people, like we all knew what to do right now. “We have to shop what to eat first.” But I don’t remember what I bought at that time. I was too depressed to photograph anything, and I don’t have a diary. Now I kind of regret that I should have photographed what I had for dinner on 911.

  When the pandemic occurred in Spring 2020, I murmured “How many days (until the pandemic ends)?”, then these words became a tentative title of the book I was going to make.

  I took photographs like drawing something on nothing these several years during the pandemic. Ghosts-like images, surprises, scenes I took a glance at, anger, daily routines, frightened moments, mourning, things I recalled, wishes rather than records. Some photographs of 15 and 16-year-old people from the new project started in Spring 2021. Then some interviews with my friends who suffered from COVID-19 since I was simply wondering  “What COVID-19 is?”. These are things this book consists of.

Obscure and kind of unfinished work, but I would like to leave this notebook in a tin can and bury it in soil for the future with a tentative title.