Images that deal with life and death – and the liminal situations in between – touch on our greatest fears in the face of the finite nature of existence and our own transience. Photography, with its almost 200-year history, is not the first medium to be used to capture, ward off or endure death. But since its invention around 1839, no other pictorial form has produced a comparable exploration in such a variety of applications, pictorial strategies and techniques. Many of these have to do with the specific characteristics of photography: on the one hand, it is said to cut through space and time and capture a moment, while on the other, the images are perceived as direct depictions of reality.

However, the exhibition “mirrors/testaments” by Japanese artist Takashi Arai (born 1978 in Kawasaki, Japan) is not about physical decay and the need to live on in the image, but about the idea of a present existence at a certain time in a certain place. The daguerreotype – the first photographic image form that was able to capture the contours of the world on a silver-plated copper plate – is of particular interest to Takashi Arai. The long exposure time means that the subjects must not move for a long period of time. Lingering is of great importance to Arai, as it creates a special relationship between the photographer and the portrayed, turning the production of the image into a shared experience that rises above the voyeuristic depiction. This silent dialog is transported through the mirrored surface of the image carrier from the taking of the picture through its development to its viewing, as the photographer and the viewer are always in the picture and continue this dialog.

Arai met with the people portrayed several times during his time at Künstlerhaus Bethanien. During these meetings, not only were the photographs taken, but audio recordings were also made. After a series of meetings and unofficial interviews, the participants were asked to read out their imaginary last words in their native language in front of a microphone. What all those portrayed and interviewed have in common is that they come from Palestine and now live in Berlin. The recorded voices were reviewed by the recipients, re-recorded or edited if desired, and mastered into high-resolution digital sound files.
This process goes back to a personal experience of Arai’s, in which he was forced to write his last will and testament due to a serious illness. The idea of leaving words to the bereaved had a lasting impact on Arai’s work. He realized that writing his last words was not an act of despair, but rather an expression of contemplation and emotional revelation.

“mirrors/testaments” focuses not only on the participants’ past, but also on their present and future. Imagining and telling their last words could stimulate our translocal and intergenerational imagination through the universal truth that each of us will cease to exist. By listening to the voices and testaments of the unknown, we imagine our own death, i.e. the future of our descendants.