terra

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AKAAKA

Photography

Softcover

112 pages

208 x 270 mm

ISBN 9784865412239

English, Japanese

Mar 2026

Since last releasing terra in 2019, Goto Aki has updated his work through a series of subsequent exhibitions.Along the way, he gradually expanded his photography domain to the submarine mountains and caves that are geographical features derived from volcanoes, in addition to the forests submerged in lakes.

While sensing the sound of the waves that reach deep into his ears, and moving forward against abrupt winds, he perceived the landscape as if “listening” visually. He was tossed about by strong surging waves in the sea off of Izu Peninsula after a typhoon had passed and clicked the shutter amid a wavering spatial awareness of up and down / near and far that is based on the premise of human perception. Landscapes gradually revert to when they were not yet given words and meaning. Light distorts, spatial contours fade, and water images manifest in unfinished form.

When creating this photobook, Goto Aki randomly positioned prints on a wall and observed the images that can seem to connect, as well as the tension and responses triggered between the images as they spread out on the surface. From there, he arranged an order with implications. Like Hans Hofmann’s “push and pull,” the detected light and color tones created synergy in the screen, bestowing a sense of visual depth. This multi-vision sensation intersected with the spatial sensation felt through his body as he walked through the mountains and dived underwater.[…]

The words “landscape topologies” used in this work refer to the relationship between body and landscapes that stays resilient despite changes in distance, form, and positional relation. The images captured here are not simply landscapes seen by his eyes; rather, they manifest as vestiges of the sensations that passed through his body as he walked, stopped, and dived.

In today’s modern times, images using landscapes as subject matter are instantly consumed as meaning and information in online space, processed as being understood by the brain before being mediated by the body. His wish is to distance himself from this type of involvement with landscapes, to come in contact with light and fluctuations by chance through his body. As these experiences accumulate, his relationship with nature quietly shifts to another phase.

Nature inherently has no name or meaning. Amidst the chain of time since the primitive ages, light creates a line, wind portrays a path, and the earth transforms to a surface to continue expanding. These motions continue today, oblivious to our understanding.

AKAAKA