Will Matsuda is a Japanese American photographer whose personal works are largely influenced by two seemingly unrelated topics: the beauty of nature and an eagerness to better understand his own mixed-racial identity. Following these thematics, his latest photo series, Kyoushuu, takes a look at Kyoto – the city where his parents met and lived – through atypical perspectives.
日裔美籍摄影师 Will Matsuda 的个人作品，灵感源于看似毫无关联的两方面：一个是来自于大自然的美景，另一个则来自于他对了解自身不同种族身份的渴望。他的最新摄影系列《Kyoushuu》也延续着同样的主题，并以独特的角度来定格京都——这也是他的父母相遇、生活的城市。
Sharing his experience of shooting the project, Matsuda tells us, “It rained nonstop for almost the entire week I was there. Almost all of these photos were taken in the last day and a half while I was in Kyoto, due to the fact that those were the hours where there wasn’t torrential rain. This definitely led to a kind of strange, dream-like quality to the photos I took while I was there.”
他与我们分享道：“我在那里的整个星期里，几乎都在下雨。整个系列里的大部分照片都是我在京都最后一天半的时间里拍摄的，因为只有在这些时间里是没有下暴雨的。也正因如此，最后拍摄出来的照片有了一种奇怪的、梦幻般的感觉。”
Matsuda cites the novels of Haruki Murakami as one of his influences: “There’s this sort of slow magical realism that creeps into some of these photos, and that’s definitely inspired by Murakami, or The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles in particular. There’s this great quote from the book that I think about a lot: ‘To know one’s own state is not a simple matter. One cannot look directly at one’s own face with one’s own eyes, for example. One has no choice but to look at one’s reflection in the mirror. Through experience, we come to believe that the image is correct, but that is all.'”
Matsuda 表示，村上春树的小说是他摄影创作的影响之一：“这其中有些照片，像是流露着一股缓慢的魔幻现实主义，这很显然是村上给我的启发，尤其是他的《奇鸟行状录》。这本书中有一句话经常让我思考：‘了解自身状况并非易事。比方说，人无法以自己的眼睛直接看自己的脸，只能借助镜子，看镜里的反映，而我们只是先验性地相信映在镜中的图像是正确的。’”
For Matsuda, photography has become a way for him to explore the notion of home, belonging, and heritage. He tells us, “I’m interested in the intersection of my Western gaze and my inherent Japanese-ness, which is familiar to anyone with a diasporic identity. I have an idea of Japan that is profoundly shaped by my socialization in the West through images and narratives about Japan in pop culture, from katakana text on seemingly every streetwear brand to the whitewashing of Hollywood. I hope to subvert the image of Japan that has been fed to me by tapping into something deeper, something within me. I find that photography is a really powerful tool to unveil my subconscious, and maybe even my own histories, to myself.”
Matsuda 认为，摄影是他了解家庭、归属感和文化传承概念的一种方式。他说：“其实我对自己身上的西方视角与日本文化内在的交融很感兴趣，这种交融对于任何在异国生活的人来说都并不陌生。我对日本的看法，很大程度上是受我在西方生活时那些流行文化中日本影像和描述的影响，从街头品牌上的片假名文字到好莱坞的电影等等。我希望能通过挖掘更深层次的东西，颠覆一直以来人们被灌输的对日本的印象。我觉得摄影是揭开自我潜意识、甚至了解自己过往很有用的工具。”
