SPIRAL CODE BY WATARU IGARASHI
Wataru Igarashi
Early 2011. I was staying under the canopy of a shrine in the town of Pokhran in the state of Rajasthan. One day, my former landlord's wife had suddenly started screaming in the middle of the street as if she had lost her mind. She had then taken me to this sanctuary which was rumored to cure disabilities and mental disorders thanks to a strong magnetic field.
After a journey of over 500km by train, bus and taxi, I found myself in this magnetic field where a hundred believers were living in tents.The trance-like prayers of a crowd of disabled and mentally ill people instilled fear in me. While I spent my time helping people to eat while feeling distressed and unable to get my camera out, I realised that a week had passed. As I gradually became familiar with them by sharing their daily lives, I was finally able to take out my camera. Over the next nine years, I spent over four hundred days in five different sanctuaries, until the coronavirus pandemic took over the world.
These places, which cannot be described by language, kept stimulating my dormant sub-conscious. Living with people who believed deeply in invisible existences made me feel a strange nostalgia. For me, growing up in Japan with the aid of modern medicine, the magnetic field appears like a giant shaman. The field reveals the inherent dynamism and wildness of humanity and enhances our natural healing power through the belief in a higher being and the earth's power.
I had the sensation of observing the parallel world that lies beyond self-awareness. This was somehow related to photography which can be connected with this other world while capturing visible concrete elements. As I think back to this time, those captured in my photographs are like a representation of myself going about my daily life. I spent days trying to get their secret nen, like a code printed in their DNA, by taking pictures of them without resorting to words. I now feel that the great invisible can give a positive meaning to our existence.
- WATARU IGARASHI
Wataru Igarashi
Early 2011. I was staying under the canopy of a shrine in the town of Pokhran in the state of Rajasthan. One day, my former landlord's wife had suddenly started screaming in the middle of the street as if she had lost her mind. She had then taken me to this sanctuary which was rumored to cure disabilities and mental disorders thanks to a strong magnetic field.
After a journey of over 500km by train, bus and taxi, I found myself in this magnetic field where a hundred believers were living in tents.The trance-like prayers of a crowd of disabled and mentally ill people instilled fear in me. While I spent my time helping people to eat while feeling distressed and unable to get my camera out, I realised that a week had passed. As I gradually became familiar with them by sharing their daily lives, I was finally able to take out my camera. Over the next nine years, I spent over four hundred days in five different sanctuaries, until the coronavirus pandemic took over the world.
These places, which cannot be described by language, kept stimulating my dormant sub-conscious. Living with people who believed deeply in invisible existences made me feel a strange nostalgia. For me, growing up in Japan with the aid of modern medicine, the magnetic field appears like a giant shaman. The field reveals the inherent dynamism and wildness of humanity and enhances our natural healing power through the belief in a higher being and the earth's power.
I had the sensation of observing the parallel world that lies beyond self-awareness. This was somehow related to photography which can be connected with this other world while capturing visible concrete elements. As I think back to this time, those captured in my photographs are like a representation of myself going about my daily life. I spent days trying to get their secret nen, like a code printed in their DNA, by taking pictures of them without resorting to words. I now feel that the great invisible can give a positive meaning to our existence.
- WATARU IGARASHI
Wataru Igarashi
Early 2011. I was staying under the canopy of a shrine in the town of Pokhran in the state of Rajasthan. One day, my former landlord's wife had suddenly started screaming in the middle of the street as if she had lost her mind. She had then taken me to this sanctuary which was rumored to cure disabilities and mental disorders thanks to a strong magnetic field.
After a journey of over 500km by train, bus and taxi, I found myself in this magnetic field where a hundred believers were living in tents.The trance-like prayers of a crowd of disabled and mentally ill people instilled fear in me. While I spent my time helping people to eat while feeling distressed and unable to get my camera out, I realised that a week had passed. As I gradually became familiar with them by sharing their daily lives, I was finally able to take out my camera. Over the next nine years, I spent over four hundred days in five different sanctuaries, until the coronavirus pandemic took over the world.
These places, which cannot be described by language, kept stimulating my dormant sub-conscious. Living with people who believed deeply in invisible existences made me feel a strange nostalgia. For me, growing up in Japan with the aid of modern medicine, the magnetic field appears like a giant shaman. The field reveals the inherent dynamism and wildness of humanity and enhances our natural healing power through the belief in a higher being and the earth's power.
I had the sensation of observing the parallel world that lies beyond self-awareness. This was somehow related to photography which can be connected with this other world while capturing visible concrete elements. As I think back to this time, those captured in my photographs are like a representation of myself going about my daily life. I spent days trying to get their secret nen, like a code printed in their DNA, by taking pictures of them without resorting to words. I now feel that the great invisible can give a positive meaning to our existence.
- WATARU IGARASHI