The Baku swims in dreams | Takashi Hara | Sokyusha 2023 [SIGNED]

Oblong 4to, hardcover. Signed.

The Baku is a mythological creature that feeds on nightmares, said to be created using the pieces left over from the creation of other creatures. Legend warns that if you let the Baku feed on your nightmares too often, it will feed on your hopes and dreams too. Baku is also the name used to indicate the tapir.

As this duality suggests, the photographs collected in this volume propose an ordinary surface reality in which deeper meanings emerge.

“Yes, they were undoubtedly there then—in front of a vast sea, inside the shopping centre, inside a house lined up with other houses along the river, and inside the zoo cage. These moments that may seem calm and peaceful at first glance have an uncertain and unsettling atmosphere hidden behind them. We simply look at them—they catch our hearts, but we cannot find any words in ourselves, and we can only stare at them as we let our town time swim in the moments that carry their existence in photographs.”
― from Kanae Takahashi’s afterword