Seiichi Furuya
Graz
Graz, 1979
From Portrait of Christine Furuya, Graz/Wien, 1978-84
Gelatin-silver print, 38.6 x 25.9 cm
Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur, gift Seiichi Furuya
1997-033-012
© Seiichi Furuya
b. 1950 (Izu, JP), lives and works in Graz, AT
Every photograph is a piece of memory. The moment it is taken, it becomes something before now, a document of a time already past. Seiichi Furuya has developed his multi-faceted work on this basis. He uses photography as a means of remembrance, both of his personal past and the public past. Portraits of his beloved wife, Christine Gössler, who died tragically in 1985, are interwoven with photographs from Amsterdam, Vienna, Graz, Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Japan, East Berlin and with portraits of Bosnian refugees, to form a haunting and ambivalent imagery that casts up questions about the way we live today. Furuya creates a fascinating dialogue between the eastern and western visual worlds.