Japan is a super-aging society: 28.9% of its population are currently elderly,* and in the year 2025, seven million people (1 in 5 elderly people) will suffer from dementia.** And yet many people in Japan do not really know what living with dementia is like or what the symptoms are.
In 2017, photojournalist Kazuhiko Matsumura began interviewing dementia patients along with their families and friends, capturing with his camera their daily lives and changes.
Set in a 100-year old Kyoto machiya, Matsumura’s exhibition is designed to allow visitors to understand the symptoms of dementia and to experience what it is like to live with dementia.
The exhibition title, Heartstrings, was inspired by something the husband of a dementia patient told Matsumura. One day, the man’s wife woke up and could not recognize him anymore, calling him “Father.” In that moment, the husband said, he felt as though the strings between their hearts had been severed.
What does it mean to grow old, and how do we face death, which lies beyond old age? Kazuhiko Matsumura’s work offers us an opportunity to understand dementia, and shines a gentle light on the small pleasures of daily living and the beauty and preciousness of human life that not even dementia takes away from us.
* “2022 White Paper on the Aging Society,” published by the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan.
** Website of the Ministry for Health, Labour and Welfare.
Born in 1980, photojournalist Kazuhiko Matsumura started working for the Japanese newspaper Kyoto Shimbun in 2003. Since then he has been exploring topics related to human life, social security, and care work. He has published two photobooks: Subtle Beauty (Kyoto Shimbun Publishing Center, 2014), about the lives of maiko (geisha apprentices) and geiko in Kyoto, and Guru Guru> (self-published, 2016), a personal project tracing the interwoven paths of life through photographs of birth and death in his own family. At KG+ in spring 2019, Matsumura exhibited his series Elusive Rainbow, about the life and work of Dr. Kazuteru Hayakawa (1924–2018), a Kyoto-based pioneer of elderly-friendly medical care. Having been on the receiving end of the medical care system himself, Dr. Hayakawa possessed a multifaceted view of issues surrounding medical care. Elusive Rainbow depicts the history of social and medical care in Japan through Dr. Hayakawa’s life; it won an Honorable Mention at the 2021 Canon New Cosmos of Photography Awards. Heartstrings was unveiled at KG+SELECT 2022 and won the jury’s Grand Prize.
キュレーター
Yumi Goto 後藤由美
Yumi Goto is an independent photography curator, editor, researcher, consultant, educator, and publisher who focuses on the development of cultural exchanges that transcend borders. She collaborates with local and international artists who live and work in areas affected by conflict, natural disasters, current social problems, human rights abuses, and women’s issues. She often works with human rights advocates, international and local NGOs, humanitarian organizations and as well as being involved as a nominator and juror for the international photographic organizations, festivals, and events. She is now based in Tokyo and also a co-founder and curator for the Reminders Photography Stronghold (RPS) which is a curated membership gallery space in Tokyo enabling a wide range of photographic activities. In addition to the RPS in Tokyo, she established a new RPS offshoot “PAPEROLES” in Kyoto and started its activities since 2020.