Imagine finding me - Photographs by Chino Otsuka

Visual artist, Chino Otsuka was born in Tokyo and moved to the UK in 1982 at the age of 10. Graduating from the Royal College of Art in MA Fine Art Photography, her work has been exhibited widely in the UK and Europe.

 

“Imagine finding me” is a series of unique double self-portraits which are created around a collection of childhood photographs taken from Otsuka’s family album. In these digitally manipulated and composite images, Otsuka’s present and past selves are snapped together in various locations and situations. As Otsuka describes, “the digital process becomes a tool, almost like a time machine as I’m embarking on the journey to where I once belonged and at the same time becoming a tourist in my own history”.

 

If,

again

I have a chance to meet,

there is so much I want to ask

and so much I want to tell.

(from Imagine finding me: Images and Words by Chino Otsuka, published in 2006)

 

For Otsuka, memory is a form of storytelling and this narrative element is very important throughout her work. Otsuka is preoccupied with the idea of home, displacement, memory and loss. What makes a place a home and where does a sense of belonging come from? For Otsuka, tracing back and recreating the past is a way to deal with such issues and many of her self-portraits are situated in places where she once belonged.

 

“Imagine finding me: Photographs by Chino Otsuka” is organised by the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation and supported by the Arts Council England and the National Media Museum. It is a Japan-UK 150 event.

 

Chino Otsuka was born in Tokyo and left Japan at the age of 10 to be educated at Summerhill School in the UK. She published her first autobiographical book in Japan at the age of 15 to much acclaim and completed her MA in Fine Art Photography at the Royal College of Art. Since then she has had numerous solo and group shows internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include “Memoriography” at the British Library (2008), “Imagine finding me” at TRACE (2006) and “High Street” at Gallery Vassie, Amsterdam (2005). She is currently on a Photography Bursary , National Media Museum UK (2008-9) and was Pearson Creative Research Fellow of the British Library (2007-8). Chino Otsuka lives and works in London and regularly gives workshops at Victoria & Albert Museum.