Photographer Takashi Arai will present the next lecture of the Hixson-Lied Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series at 5:30 p.m. April 5 in Richards Hall, Room 15. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Arai first encountered photography while he was a university student studying biology. In an effort to trace photography to its origins, he encountered daguerreotype, and after much trial and error, he mastered the complex technique.
Beginning in 2010, Arai used the daguerreotype technique to create individual records or micro-monuments of his encounters with surviving crew members and the salvaged hull of the Daigo Fuküryumaru, a nuclear fallout-contaminated fishing boat. This project led him to photograph the deeply interconnected subjects of Fukushima, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Arai’s work has appeared in the Mori Art Museum and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. In 2014, he received the Source-Cord Prize, sponsored by a contemporary photography magazine in England. His works are held in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and Musée Adrien Mentienne in France, among others.
The Hixson-Lied Visiting Artists & Scholars Lecture Series is underwritten by the Hixson-Lied Endowment, with additional support from other sources. The program brings notable artists, scholars and designers to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Department of Art and Art History, enhancing the education of students and enriching the culture of the state by providing a way for Nebraskans to interact with luminaries in the fields of art, art history and design.
Arai’s visit to UNL is co-sponsored by the Kawasaki Reading Room.
Richards Hall is located at Stadium Drive and T streets. For more information, contact the Department of Art and Art History at 402-472-5522.
The remaining Hixson-Lied Visiting Artists & Scholars Lecture is: * Deb Sokolow, 5:30 p.m. April 28 in Richards Hall Room 15. Sokolow is a Chicago-based artist and a lecturer at Northwestern University. She is a 2012 recipient of an Artadia Grant and has participated in residencies nationally and internationally.
