About

Born in 1984, Koyama produces works on gelatin silver prints through appropriating the technique of analog film montage, in which he prints and duplicates films onto films in his self-made darkroom.
Soon after graduating from university, Koyama received the Excellence Award at the “New Cosmos of Photography 2008” (sponsored by Canon), having been discovered his talent by Fumio Nanjo (current director of the Mori Art Museum).
In 2012, Koyama took part in the group exhibition “PhotoEspaña Asia Serendipity” (Madrid, Spain), attracting much attention for his works in Europe.
Koyama’s works that are conceived through superimposing images of landscapes from around the world, permeate with a fantastical space-time where existence itself appears shrouded in mist, and specific time and place is unidentifiable.
Koyama, who has an exceptional history of enlisting in the Self Defense Force for a year to gain the physical strength and survival skills that would enable him to take photographs under any circumstances, continues to earnestly confront life through his practice.
What is indeed the attraction of Koyama’s works that harbor a multifaceted expression, which at once presents itself as utopia and as nightmare?

“Another World” born from a reality conceived through the repeated overlaying, inversion and duplication of film

What is beauty?
What is a world with beauty?
Since a student, Kohei Koyama has continued to insatiably pursue this rhetorical question, producing works that appropriate the technique of “analog film montage.” Analog film montage is the technique of printing images from numerous films onto a single film. The negative film that serves as the base image is enlarged and printed on a 8x10 monochrome (negative) film sheet (at this point by which the printed negative film becomes a positive film). Thereafter, parts of images captured on other films are printed and superimposed onto the aforementioned film sheet through a process of dodging (at this stage reversing the positive film into a negative film).
Koyama produces the final film through this process of superimposing and repeatedly inverting and duplicating positive/negative film, which is then printed it onto silver halide photographic paper to complete the work. This method of superimposition from film to film by means of inversion and duplication, is that which requires precise calculation by hand such as controlling the negative /positive and inversion of images as well as the level of contrast, and also the roughness of the grain. As a matter of course, even after the film has been superimposed/produced to its final form, printing work that entails over a hundred steps is undertaken day after day in the darkroom.

Imagination that emerges from the “unseeable” time in the darkroom, and frontiers reached through the quintessential failures in analog photography

“Analog film montage” can be considered a technique that fully utilizes the fundamental characteristic of photography as a “reproducible medium.” Nowadays when image editing can be simply carried out through programs like Photoshop, why does Koyama, who is a photographer of the digital native generation, purposefully engage in producing works through superimposing actual analog films?

“Of course, there are numerous benefits of doing this digitally. With the current method that I use, it usually takes me about one month to complete the work from after I finish taking the photographs. If I were working with digital, it may simply take me a couple of days. In this sense, I wonder how many works I can actually produce in my lifetime. I’m sure the quality of the superimposition would improve if I used Photoshop as well. That being said, I feel that I can’t extend my imagination beyond what I’m seeing before my eyes if I’m just cutting and pasting, or trimming something on a monitor. My ideas can expand further because I am unable to see. Perhaps the true difference between the method that I engage in and a digital process lies in how the final image comes to manifest, plus the extent to which I can expand my ideas.”

Rather than convenience that lies within the scope of expectation, Koyama chooses to devote himself everyday to the working in the darkroom that harbors infinite possibilities.

“I embark on taking photographs with a certain vision in my mind of ‘the kind of image I would like to see, or a cut that I want,’ yet even at the stage of shooting or developing the film, I am unable to see what has actually been captured. I am able to see the normal image for the first time after it is in the form of a contact print, so it is in fact quite a while since taking the photograph. Meanwhile, I let my imagination swell as to what kinds of images have been captured. Then as I work in the darkroom, I take the photographic paper in my hands, which while having had the image exposed does not yet convey anything, once again leading me to imagine how it would turn out. As a result, my imagination becomes more and more refined.”

Furthermore, Koyama states how certain failures can result in unforeseen discoveries.

“At times I accidentally move my hand, and although I am unable to carry out the superimposition work as planned, I would see the actual image that was developed and find it to be interesting. I am constantly seeking to what extent I can visualize the images that are in my head, and the occurrence of these kinds of failures give rise to an unexpected sense of interest to my works.”

The realm between fantasy and reality conceived through Koyama’s insatiable confrontation with life, and endless pursuit of beauty

Koyama has an exceptional history of enlisting in the Self Defense Force after graduating from university, as one of his steps towards becoming a photographer. He mentions how he had the desire to venture into a world that he had never seen before.

“I had hoped to save up some money to become a photographer, but as I thought there’d perhaps be opportunities for me to go to the mountains or the jungle to take photographs for my works, I also wanted to learn about how to understand the topography and read maps, as well as other skills that would enable survival and self-support under any kinds of circumstances.”

“Survival and self-support” is a training terminology used by the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force, and refers to a training program for learning survival skills such as the knowledge of and methods for determining edible animals and plants, as well as the means by which to cook them. For over a year before he received the Excellence Award as the New Cosmos of Photography, Koyama had in some sense found himself within a special environment.

The main visuals for his latest series “Journey under the midnight sun, the second ring” had taken over seven years to produce, superimposing several photographs including those from 2011 that capture images of a shipwreck off the coast of Iriomote Island, and those taken in New Zealand in 2017.

As of course is the case with the aforementioned process of film superimposition, it is not hard to imagine that a considerable amount of calculation is also entailed at the stage of shooting.
It is morning or night? At what time and where was the photograph taken? With such questions in mind, one cannot help but wonder how such works were created –works that permeate with an enigmatic space-time where the very source of the subjects appears shrouded in mist.
One asked Koyama whether to some extent he has an overall image of the outcome of the work from the initial stages, or whether it is something that is conceived later on. His response was as follows.

“There are three patterns in which I work.
The first is to come up with the finished image in my mind from the start, then going out to take photographs accordingly while seeking out the subjects that I need for the image. “Fig tree flower” and “Mebius loop” are examples of this.

“The second way is to go shooting in a place where I’d initially wanted to take photographs, being moved once again when actually encountering that place and landscape, and then later going out to photograph subjects that I feel are necessary for that scene.
The third is to photograph something that is interesting, and then make a contact print. I would then develop it into a work while looking at it and imagining how it could be interesting if I combined certain things with others and so on.”

The “Journey under the midnight sun” is said to belong to the second pattern.

“In ‘Journey under the midnight sun’ I am making a world that I myself would really like to see or wish existed, and I hope for viewers to venture into the realm of my works as well. I would like them to step into the work and further engage their imagination. The works that I have created are a mere entrance. Nothing would make me happier, than if each and every one of the people viewing the works enter into that world and play and enjoy themselves there.”

Koyama, who had decided to become a photographer when he was in junior high school, mentions how he spent much of his time gazing up at the sky from the window of his home, as well as the clouds that would form only to disappear and drift away.

“There were numerous of moments when I felt for example, that it would be a much better scenery if there was a particular sky against a certain landscape. It was then that I realized that what I want is not the things that are just there before my eyes. I thought that in this case I should go ahead and create it myself, and thereby came to superimpose various images. What I am essentially creating is a beauty in reality with elements of fantasy. It is not fantasy in itself, but a real sense of beauty that harbors fantastical elements.”

Perhaps it is Koyama’s strength as a living being that instinctively perceives and continues to insatiably explore not only that which is visible and exists, but also things that cannot be seen and do not yet have form, which serves to give rise to this beauty that resides in the realm between fantasy and reality.
Koyama’s works that are conceived through engraving and overlaying numerous realities, through them reveal another world that lies hidden within our reality.
Viewers are let towards a sensation as if being handed the key to a door that opens onto a world yet to be seen.

text by Sayaka Samejima (Indipendent Editor)