Golden Persimmons IIāBrian Kanagaki
Documenting absence
A table of fruit; a skyline, devoid of life; a ladder framed against skyāthese laconic scenes, documentary snapshots of everyday life and its alienated torporāmake up the latest publication from Brian Kanagaki via London-based Palm* Studios. Taken over the course of six years, and split into three parts, the bookāmore akin to a catalogue, with the names of locations indexed at the workās endāinhabit the space of melancholia; in softened monochrome.
Thereās a visual similarity to the work of post-war German author and photographer W.G. Sebald, whose novels were punctuated by decontextualized black and white images which he himself had taken. The doorways of Terezin, a Czech concentration camp; piles of documents; bric-a-brac in a junk store window. Each scene conveyed not a presence but an absence; a void that surged around the imageāescaping its frame. Likewise, Kanagakiās imagesāthis time mostly without text, excepting the indexāreduce human existence to scenes without humans, though they carry the imprint of their having been present.
Golden Persimmons II continues Palm* Studioās exploration into a conceptual photography that has, at its heart, people and places (even if the people, in Kanagakiās work, are absent). The book is available from their website, alongside a ream of additional content and material.











