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  ©Kiyoshi Yagi

Since 1994 Kiyoshi Yagi makes several visits to the villages of the Eskimo and the Aleut living in the Arctic beyond national borders. He takes photographs of nature as well as life of hunting race in the far north.

“In the villages of the Eskimo dotting the wilderness in far north even if it is in the outlying region,” Yagi mentions, “I feel strongly that most of their traditional culture has been gone out of their mind because of going deeply into Western value and it’s life style.” At present, the movement to keep record of what elders of the Eskimo speak about traditional life as well as hunting is intensely active. It is also active to try to accede their traditional culture. Yagi thinks trend like this is an indication that the Eskimo themselves feel impatient and uncomfortable with the quick stream of time.

In nature, it is true that there are changes of the seasons and stream of time standing aloof from time of human world. Yagi asks himself, “Are there two different streams of time on the earth?” Walking out from the village of Eskimo, he feels the world filled with pastel colored lit up by sensitive lights. “There is nature of far north from which their ancestor found out the truth. The natural scenery is blended in with the time of modernized village, and it creates mysterious rhythm”, says Yagi. He naturally gets interests in mysterious “time” existing in both nature and human world, and continues to take photographs in the far north. Mysterious feeling in the lonely travels becomes a spring for Yagi to another travel in the far north.

Around 30 color photographs are shown.

Kiyoshi Yagi
Born in Nagano Prefecture, Japan, 1968. Graduated from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Journalism Department in 1993, then studied with Takeshi Mizukoshi, photographer. 
Awards: Newcomer’s Award, The Photographic Society of Japan, 2004
2nd Prize, Yukio Tabuchi Award, Yukio Tabuchi Memorial Museum, 2005
One-person exhibition: “The Families of Far North: Portrait of Eskimo and Aleut”, Aidem Photo Gallery [sirius], 2005 (Tokyo). “Portrait of the Eskimo and the Aleut”, Photo Gallery International, 2006 (Tokyo).

Exhibitions at PGI