CANARY

Lieko Shiga
CANARY

Photographs: Lieko Shiga

Publisher: AKAAKA

80 pages

Year: 2007

ISBN: 978-4-903545-21-9

Comments: Hardcover with illustrated dust jacket, 27,7 x 41,7 cm, color photographs. Obi is missing. In very good condition, other than some wears and a tiny miss on top of the spine on the dust jacket (see picture). Extremely scarce!

CANARY presents a beguiling body of work by a young photographer. The constructed images are steeped in a world of magical realism charged with a primal and animistic immediacy. The world in Shiga Lieko's hands seems to be pregnant with dynamism and movement, which at times can also be threatening. She combines local myths with stories of ordinary people and their personal memories, feelings and experiences. She thus creates fantastical and often dramatic images that make reference to the twilight area between dream and reality. Her often-dark work is deeply rooted in the Japanese folkloric tradition and the supernatural as a self-evident presence.

Throughout the work, the viewer is prompted to speculate how the photographs were created. What was her process? What aspects have been captured by the camera and what has been adulterated.