BANTA – STAINED MEMORY (Japan, 2008)

Banta is the term for the impressive cliffs on the Japanese island of Okinawa. For years Osamu James Nakagawa carried with him the memories of the first time that he stood atop them. Their ter-rifying height and infinite history seem to take on still more power against the canvas of sky and sea. In 2008 Nakagawa returned to Okinawa to descend the cliffs and experience them from a dif-ferent perspective. The shadows that played over the cliffs, the white craters in the limestone and the inky black caves were ‘stark reminders of all that these cliffs had witnessed’. Ultimately he re-turned home with thousands of images. ‘As I re-shaped and re-experienced the original digital im-ages,’ says Nakagawa, ‘these cliffs became a metaphor for Okinawa’s history as well as digitally-manipulated, hyper-real visions of my experience standing between fear and beauty on Okinawa’s banta.’