YUKARI CHIKURA online exhibition autumn 2020

ZAIDO This book is Yukari Chikura’s preservation of the 1300-year-old Japanese ritual festivity “Zaido.” Following a series of tragedies including her father’s sudden death, her own critical accident, and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Chikura recalls how her father came to her in a dream with the words “Go to the village hidden deep in the snow where I lived a long time ago.” And so, with camera in hand, she set off on a restorative pilgrimage to northeast Japan, the first of many journeys.

Chikura arrived at the village, surreally silver in the snow and mist, and there discovered Zaido, where inhabitants from different villages gather on the second day of each new year and conduct a ritual dance to induce good fortune. The performers dedicate their sacred dance to the gods and undergo severe purifications. Combining photos of snowscapes that border on abstraction with images of the intricate masks and costumes of Zaido, Chikura depicts the cultural diversity of the participants as well as their common bond in creating collective memory and ensuring the survival of this ritual.

Yukari Chikura was born in Tokyo, Japan. After graduating from university with a degree in music, she became a composer and computer programmer. She is the winner of the STEIDL BOOK AWARD, which led to Steidl’s publication of Zaido. She was selected as one of “FOTOFEST’s "Discoveries of the Meeting Place 2018.” She won the LensCulture Emerging Talent Award in 2016, Sony World Photography Awards, Photolucida Critical Mass TOP50 in 2016 and in 2015 among others. She has had twelve solo exhibitions and group shows at museums and galleries around the world. Her work is in the collections of the Griffin Museum in the United States and Bibliotheque nationale de France.