Keijiro Kai 甲斐啓二郎

In 2012, sports photographer Keijiro Kai attended a Christian festival called Shrovetide Football which has been held annually for several hundred years in Ashbourne, a town in northern England. This festival is thought to be the prototype of modern football (soccer) and rugby. During the festival, the entire town becomes a playing field as players fight for the ball, sometimes getting into brawls, trying to throw it into the goal. Kai, who believes that “festivals reveal something fundamental about human nature,” has since travelled to Georgia, South America, Japan and other places to photograph various traditional fighting festivals that have been passed down from generation to generation.

This exhibition includes Shrove Tuesday, a series documenting Shrovetide Football; Opens and Stands Up, photographed during the Lelo festival held during Easter in Georgia; Kira no haregi (‘Clothed in sunny finery’), photographed at hadaka (‘naked’) festivals in the Japanese prefectures of Iwate, Mie, Okayama, and Gunma; Teoi no kuma (‘Wounded bears’) shot during the Dosojin Festival at Nozawa Onsen in Nagano; and Ichijō no tetsu (‘Ashes to ashes’), about the Toda Fire Festival in Aichi. On the first floor, a nine-minute video featuring four Kai series—Down to the Bone, Teoi no kuma, Kira no haregi, and Ichijō no tetsu—is being shown for the first time on three large screens.
Kai sometimes dons a fundoshi loincloth) and participates in the festivals himself, shooting photos while being pushed around. He says that it’s only when he has to change film that he is "pulled back into reality,” briefly changing from participant to spectator. It may be because he moves back and forth between these two states that he is able to capture the trance-like state of excitement of the packed people in such a raw form.
Kai says, "People have a tendency to cling to things they can’t see. Even if we aren’t aware of what we're running towards or fighting for, maybe we need these festivals—occasions to go all out for something—once a year. I hope these photographs give you a tingling sensation, a feeling you can't put into words."
Festivals have attracted and fascinated people throughout history and around the world. Kai's work raises the essential question of what it means to be human.