Portrait photographer Hiroh Kikai marks NANZUKA's first exhibition by a photographer with Ya-Chimata. Kikai captures the lives and human nature of the people as his subjects. The images reflect more than just the physicality of being human but also the raw aspects of people. The unnamed people in the images span from unemployed individuals to well-known personalities, yet each is deemed equal through the photos—all with stories to tell and hardships to go through; all kings; all wrapped in their own dignity. “You know, people don’t become refined in a way as if peeling away the outer shell and removing what is not needed," Kikai shares. "They come to make sense of themselves, thinking, "I’m fine with this” through continuing to live one while holding on to all the excess experience, unnecessary hardships, and useless failures.”
