Over their dead bodies – Kensuke Koike

“Some time ago, browsing through old photographs in a flea market, two group portraits caught my eye. Of the eight women in the first photo, six appeared in the other photo as well. I recognized them from their faces not their dresses, which were different. No clue as to what photo was shot first. On the reverse both bore the same studio imprint, a photographer of the First World War.
I asked myself the reason why there were eight in the one photo and only six in the other. What happened to the missing two? Did they quarrel, lose touch with each other, move to another town or simply die young? Very old photographs can’t really tell their stories because they have gone with the memories of their owners. They are like vessels adrift after breaking their moorings. Each one of us can let our imagination wander. We can grant them a new story.” (K.K.)

The book-project was realized by Koike in 2014 as part of a wider reflection on the manipulation of photography and imaginary. A manipulation, though, that could be defined ‘analogic’ due to the fact that the artist himself cut, paste, tear off and re-compose the image, creating some new photographs with a new and independent life. Kensuke Koike’s aim is to demonstrate that anything is related to our point of view, from our feedback on reality, from the tiny perspective we experience of the whole world.

Kensuke Koike, Over their dead bodies, 2014

© Kensuke Koike, 2014, courtesy blisterZine