Looking Back on a Milestone Year

"WAR REQUIEM I", a solo exhibition by artist and photographer Kunihiko Katsumata is been held at KOKI ARTS for 26 July to 23 August, 2025. Timed to coincide with the symbolic year of 2025—100 years since the beginning of the Shōwa era and 80 years after the end of World War II—the exhibition reconfigures and presents two of Katsumata’s long-running series: To Iwo Jima, which centers on the island of Iwo Jima, and Remains, which features photographs of atomic-bombed trees in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Katsumata’s acute sensitivity to war and conflict stems from a deep desire to understand history and to explore the origins and underlying structures of modern Japan. A self-proclaimed pacifist, he grew up in Gotemba, Shizuoka Prefecture, where the sounds of live-fire drills were part of daily life due to his father’s service as a Ground Self-Defense Force officer. His extended family includes a relative who served as Director-General of the Defense Agency during Katsumata’s childhood, and two great-uncles—one who volunteered as a teenager and died in battle on Iwo Jima, and another who served in the Maritime Self-Defense Force. These familial and geographical roots continue to inform his artistic perspective.

Both To Iwo Jima and Remains are unified by a quiet gaze—not only upon the vast devastation wrought by war and the atomic bombings, but also upon the silent resilience of those who endured long after the conflict ended. Katsumata’s works, born from empathy for the voiceless, engage with memory and gently pose introspective questions to the viewer.

Kunihiko Katsumata

Born in Shizuoka Prefecture. Graduated from the School of Law at Waseda University and completed studies at the Inter Medium Institute. He is currently a professor at Kyoto University of the Arts and a part-time lecturer at Tama Art University. Working with a wide range of subjects, Katsumata consistently engages with the structure of photography and moving images, using subthemes such as "time," "light," and "place." His major awards include the Sagamihara Photography Newcomer Encouragement Award (2001) and the Photographic Society of Japan Newcomer's Award (2005).