Kyoko Hamaguchi “Light Time Story”

Kyoko Hamaguchi is constantly searching for ways to represent the steady march of time and perpetual motion that constitutes the globalized world. The Japanese artist investigates the transitory reality of contemporary life, combining different types of media – photography, sculpture and installation – to mark her relationship with time and space.

The innovative application of analogue technology including the use of photographic film and pinhole cameras activates a fluid and complex point of view that simultaneously combines the systematic and the personal in its quest to capture the reality of everyday life.

For the first time, Hamaguchi has been invited to bring her unique perspective to the city of Milan. Expanding on a practice she began in the New York City underground with the work End to End (NYC Subway), 2017-2018, the artist has taken a series of long exposure photographs on the all four lines of the Milanese underground – the most historic in Italy.

Hamaguchi made a complete round trip on each subway line, allowing the length of each route to determine the exposure time of the photographs. This technical yet poetic process outlines the daily passage of time of the people who, every day, move within the city and of the shapes and objects encountered along the way.