Kouichi Nakazawa

I had all those pictures and I was wondering what can I do with them. Printing them out and doing an exhibition felt a bit plain and boring to me. Back in the days, I came across Aoyama Teruma’s free paper called the DREAM PAPER, and I loved it. So I started making my own zine called the Gotham Timez, throwing in my photography works into it. In the beginning, it was like a street fashion free paper, but it was acting as a unique format of portfolio for me. 1000 units in Tokyo and New York, made available in shops, hotels, bars, and few casual restaurants. And every time I launched a new print, I threw parties at the studio, and over time people started buying my work. It was such a wonderful feeling, you know when people you don’t know are showing lots of love for your work. That’s where I started working on photography in the field of art. I used to give out copies of my work to friends at weddings and stuff, and they were telling me that it wasn’t signed…and it didn’t state edition numbers. Especially people who are in the photography industry were telling me about how important those things are. So I started putting more time into the execution of presentation, pricing, etc. Like nowadays, if you have the digital version of the image, you could basically replicate works as many times as you want. Creating one of one became more and more important for me. Making things unique. One of my clients asked me to present my work at one of the newer facilities in Hinodesan Bridge. Instead of just doing it in an orthodox way, I started to tape the frame. I didn’t do anything to the actual photographs. Then people started to ask me where the frame was made. Funny stuff huh. Taping became a thing since. Also, ANAGRA in Hanzomon did a group exhibition once and I exhibited some of my works, this time with taping on the photographs. I had some interesting feedbacks cuz in back in the day lots of international rappers didn’t really hit the mainstream culture in Japan and half of the people couldn’t recognize the portraits. Finally, in October last year, I threw a full solo exhibition in New York with the taping style, where the taping itself was randomized and also acting as the frame. There were 7 pieces in total and each one was unique one-offs. Then this year was where I met the creative director of Saint Maison. I think it was in May. He was throwing some interesting ideas at me when we had our first meeting. I still remember him telling me about the importance of craft and handmade-ness. To be honest, I was a bit upset, but at the same time, I thought it was a good chance to grow as an artist. Letting go of the whole concept of photography once and focus on art, especially after receiving some advice from Mr. Saito (Saint Maison Creative Director) I tried few things out using image transfer, transferring images on to different fabrications at the beginning. Some turned out great, some not so much. I did all sorts of stuff for about 2 months and a happy accident happened… I can’t really say what happened but I ended up testing more on the product of the accident and reached the current transparent photography style. It was a long journey for me, from photography to art, which is why I’m grateful for all those around me that encouraged me to do it.