TITLE: ETHER

When I visit the botanical garden, I am always captivated by the immense
glass domes. Inside these domes, the air is warm and humid, completely
different from the outside, and it feels comfortable and refreshing to me.
Despite the challenges of photographing in this moist and dimly lit
environment, I find myself becoming increasingly enthusiastic. The
moment I gaze through the viewfinder at the veined leaves and press the
shutter, I feel as if something within me awakens.
Aristotle's concept of the four elements posits that all matter in the world
is composed of four elements: fire, air, water, and earth. He further
proposed that the heavens are composed of a fifth element, which he called
"ETHER." This ETHER is an ever-glowing substance, different from
earthly matter, representing the radiant atmosphere that perpetually fills
the heavens.
I imagine the presence of ETHER in the air drifting within the greenhouse.
This glowing atmosphere, the upper layer of hot and humid air, quietly
overlooks the plants as they undergo their cycles of reincarnation. This
series was conceived with the idea that the ETHER shining in the sky
illuminates the life of the greenhouse plants, creating portraits of plants
enveloped in ETHER. Even within the greenhouse environment, plants
are surrounded by light, continually performing photosynthesis to fulfill
their life cycle.
Much like medieval alchemists who endeavored to create gold through
chemical means, my darkroom work becomes a process of experimentation
and trial and error. In the darkroom, I wait for the moment when the
captured plants begin to glow as if emerging from the water, as the
ETHER fills the space.

AUTHOR: Keiko Takamura (Japan)

While working in architecture, Keiko studied photography at various
workshops. She takes photographs with a film camera, develops them
and prints them on fiber-based paper in the darkroom.
She is interested in the expression of water, the source of all life, and
hopes to restore moisture to plants by watering them in the darkroom.
Therefore, printing in the darkroom on fiber-based paper is a necessary
process in the creation of her works.

Main exhibitions

2025 Kiyosato Museum Photographic Arts
(Kiyosato, Japan/ Outdoor Group Photo Exhibition)
2025 2025 SKM PHOTO（新光三越,台北市）
2024 FOTOZOFIO OFFLINE 2024 ARLES café japone（Arles, France/
slide show）
2024 「Rippling light」Jam Photo Gallery（Meguro, Tokyo/ solo
exhibition）
2024 “Urban buoyancy” FOTOZOFIO (Kyoto Station Wall, Kyoto)
2023 “Urban buoyancy” Gallery Solaris（Osaka / solo exhibition)
2023 "Urban buoyancy" Place M (Shinjuku Gyoenmae, Tokyo / solo
exhibition)
2021 Art Sacré St Nicholas Church（Compiègne, France）
2021 "ETHER 2021" space2*3 (Nihonbashi, Tokyo / solo exhibition)
2020 "Floating Humidity" Place M (Shinjuku Gyoenmae, Tokyo / solo
exhibition)
2019 Art Sacré Saint-Pierre Church (Saint-Lys, France)

Participated in many other group exhibitions.