青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

The color of the panels slowly changed according to the position of the setting sun, and I caught myself catching my breath at the sight of the panels that reflected the pastel-colored sky in beautiful hues. Quite simply, I thought the solar panels looked magnificent . . . Maybe I could totally change people’s perception of solar panels through these photographs?

——from the text

This first collection by Yoshiki Hemmi presents the series that won him the Grand Prix at the first Canon Graphgate, a competition for new photographic and video artists inaugurated in 2023. Hemmi’s work on the series began when he saw how utterly a solar power plant in his rural hometown had transfigured the landscapes he had known since childhood. This prompted him to become aware of the challenges solar power generation was creating for communities throughout the country; he soon began to photograph one such site and, through this endeavor, to explore possibilities for reconciling development with local lives. The results cross the visuality of photography with scholarly fieldwork—Hemmi earned a master’s in sociology expressly for this project—to yield images of singular power that posit new affinities between social issues and photographic expression.

Yoshiki Hemmi was born in 1994 in the city of Misawa in Aomori Prefecture and earned a master’s degree from the Waseda University Graduate School of Social Sciences. A specialist in the fields of environmental sociology, social design, and socially engaged art, he conducts experiential research focused on coexistence with renewable-energy development. He received the first Canon Graphgate Grand Prix in 2023.