Scenes of Absence

Yuhki Touyama’s “Scenes of Absence” is a series photographed during the period of home care for her late grandmother.
Amid the closed-off days of caregiving under the COVID-19 pandemic, she took these photographs during brief outings to the neighborhood for shopping - desperate moments of release. The resulting images capture landscapes pierced by fleeting light and color.

In contrast, the monochrome photographs that appear in between were taken with her grandmother’s gaze in mind - the gaze of someone confined indoors. Her grandmother often spoke of seeing hallucinations, and in response, Touyama photographed the garden from the house’s windows, as if to accompany and share in that vision.
Together, these two perspectives weave the fabric of “Scenes of Absence.”

The grandmother herself does not appear in a single image. Instead, what emerges is the contrast in the passage of time between the caregiver and the one receiving care. The photographs, marked by absence, simultaneously announce loss and provide a means for continued dialogue with the grandmother for those left behind.
On the book’s cover, color and monochrome photographs overlap faintly, as if the boundary between them were wavering.

Touyama’s first photobook, “Line 13” (2008), was suffused with the sense of loss following a friend’s death. Through photography, she breathed, confronted grief, and sought to understand those who were no longer present.
Now, with “Scenes of Absence,” she moves beyond loss - toward an exploration of caregiving, and toward the ongoing dialogue that connects one person to another.