Kei Ito Biography
I am a Baltimore-based visual artist who primarily works with cameraless photography and installation art. My work addresses issues of deep intergenerational loss and connections as I explore: the materiality and experimental processes of photography, visualizing the invisible, radiation, memory and life/death.
The increase of nuclear armaments worldwide, and the ramping up of nuclear tensions between the world powers harken back to the terror of my grandfather’s experience during the bombing of Hiroshima. My grandfather, Takeshi Ito, was a high school student when he witnessed the great tragedy that destroyed nearly everything in Hiroshima. He survived the bombing, yet he lost many of his family members from the explosion and radiation poisoning. After fleeing from Hiroshima, he became a College professor and a profound anti-nuclear activist who established major support for A-bomb victims, including a healthcare system specifically designed for the survivors. As an activist and author, my grandfather fought against the use of nuclear weaponry throughout his life, until he too passed away from cancer when I was 9 years old.
My work meditates on the complexity of my identity and heritage through examining the past and current threats of nuclear disaster and my present status as an US-immigrant. Most of my prints are made with exposing light-sensitive material to sunlight, often timing the exposures with my breath, influenced by my grandfather’s words describing the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima “...was like hundreds of suns lighting up the sky”. These X-ray-like prints are usually installed in a way that provokes a monument. I have been creating numbers of ambitious large-scale projects both in traditional art spaces and public spaces.
Curatorial Statement
Delving into personal, familial, and communal trauma, Kei Ito shows us the devastation of the countless lives impacted by the legacy of the atomic bomb. Drawing a keen eye on the doomsday clock, Ito asks unanswerable questions, questions that should remind all of us of the precariousness of an improbable future.
Was it warfare created in the name of freedom; who ultimately suffers the consequences of its cruelty; do the marginalized have a right to reparations; and, most importantly, does the global community understand what our responsibilities should be?
Ito has developed a completely new language to contemplate this legacy. His artwork is a manifestation of frustration, fear, truth-telling, universal questions of survival, and the nature of war and peace. To enter Ito’s realm is to comprehend his fundamental regard for humanity and his desire to manifest truth while acknowledging the suffering caused by those in power.
Hamidah Glasgow, Executive Director, and Curator
