Hiroshi Maeda "Fireflies"

 

Hiroshi Maeda has been hunting his memories of fireflies since his childhood. In Japan, fireflies are considered to be a national treasure and detecting them requires great precision both in the choice of remote places and the time of shooting. Hiroshi Maeda has worked with local farmers to find the best locations. Pure water is very important for these magic moments to happen. For many years, due to pollution, the fireflies disappeared, and it's only lately that they have come back. This series is a highly poetic examination of the possibility of reversing the harmful effects of humans and industry on the environment.

 

Hiroshi Maeda works with long exposure times, superimposed images. His black and white prints are made with charcoal pigments (Piezography) with incomparable halftone rendering, giving a unique depth and materiality to the picture and rich shades of black.

 

Born in 1956 in Fukui, Japan, in a family of architects. Since childhood, Hiroshi Maeda has been passionate about drawing and photography. He studied painting in Tokyo and later in Paris at the National School of Decorative Arts (EnsAD) in the studio of Zao Wou-ki. In addition to his artistic activities he is also a professor in the Photography department at EnsAD. Maeda's photographs have been collected by the Pompidou Center as well as private collections in Europe and Asia. This is Hiroshi Maeda's first solo exhibition in China.