The Photographers Gallery - Omoiyari: Keiken X Gabriel Massan

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Exhibition dates 20 May - 31 August 2022

Omoiyari by Keiken X Gabriel Massan is the first commission of Open Space – an Augmented Reality (AR) initiative developed for Soho Photography Quarter, a new public art space in the immediate surroundings of The Photographers’ Gallery.

Omoiyari, the Japanese word for compassion, comprises a series of posters and an interactive AR filter. The series documents a range of otherworldly avatars, with each poster acting as a portrait encapsulating a fragment of time, capturing each avatar in a freeze frame mid-motion.

Audiences will meet U-Mi Water warrior, who is beginning to comprehend their fractal responsibility in the realisation that ‘my mind spreads out beyond my body as fields’; Tolmi, the word for ‘help’ in the indigenous Mexican language Téneek, an avatar with a strong exterior who reveals their soft vulnerable interior as they wish they could communicate their internal land to you; Uxkme, the Téneek word for ‘old woman’, a fragile avatar trapped in a thick gel of time: she knows who she was although she has forgotten who this is; Yik’wax, meaning ‘dark’ in Téneek, exerts their spirit as a vital life force, reminding us of the balance of light and dark and that we cannot live without each other; and finally Xibam, meaning ‘brother’ in Téneek, a cute sibling spirit with eternal nurturing energy acknowledges that sometimes their own spirit runs away from them. A trace of movement is drawn that exposes the intensity of a pure feeling at the heart of each avatar.