Ba Ba Bakuhatsu(Grandma Explosion)
A blind medium called “Itako” invites the spirits of the dead and tell the words to the clients of aged women gathered in a hallowed area.
This series was shot from 1968 to 1970. The aged women listen to the words of the dead, their fathers and husbands who died in the war or their sons who were fishermen shipwrecked due to a sudden change of the weather, and the children or grandchildren who died from disease. The aged women cry recollecting their relatives’ memories in the day time and drink and dance cheerfully at night. The thought that the dead re-radiate the brightness of life to the existing women is quite impressive. The vitality of women comes from the earth. They embrace everything like goddesses and the title “Ba Ba Bakuhatsu (Grandma Explosion)” came to my mind naturally.
Tono Story
One of the origins of Japanese folklore study is considered to be a book entitled Tono Story written by Kunio Yanagida. This book was made from his collection of folklores spoken by Kizen Sasaki born in Tono area of Iwate Prefecture. It was published in 1910. I myself covered the same area more than 10 years from 1970 for my own series. In this series and Ba Ba Bakuhatsu(Grandma Explosion) series, I intensively adopted a flashlight system in many cases. Now the flashlight is quite common in shooting, but those days it was not such a convenient device with trouble caused by technical standards. There is an unexpected, accidentally curious result when applying this device in photography. A vivid flashlight shows us an invisible world momentarily and gives us the chance to take a world beyond imagination. It inspired my intellectual curiosity enough. After the Tono Story series, I concentrated more on my study of folklore. In this exhibition, Naito Masatoshi presents four photographs from the series Show, five from the series Tono Story, and one from the series Tokyo as well as eight works from the series Ba Ba Bakuhatsu(Grandma Explosion). [Naito Masatoshi]
Ba Ba Bakuhatsu (Grandma Explosion) “Nishino Koyasan, Koboji, Aomori”
Ba Ba Bakuhatsu (Grandma Explosion) “Dakayamainari Shirine, Aomori”
Ba Ba Bakuhatsu (Grandma Explosion) “Osoresan, Aomori”
Ba Ba Bakuhatsu (Grandma Explosion) “Osoresan, Aomori”
Ba Ba Bakuhatsu (Grandma Explosion) “Hounji, Aomori”
Ba Ba Bakuhatsu (Grandma Explosion) “Osoresan, Aomori”
Ba Ba Bakuhatsu (Grandma Explosion) “Kudoki, Aomori”
Ba Ba Bakuhatsu (Grandma Explosion) “Kudoki, Aomori”
