Photobattle

At the same moment as the first ANT!FOTO exhibition in 2010, a first photobattle was realized at Baikado in Konohana and Bloom Gallery in Juso, Osaka. Possible approaches to the question of whether and how photography functions as a visual means of communication, whether it can be a “visual Esperanto”, are fundamental to the various photobattle performances, but also recur repeatedly in ANT!FOTO.

»Konohana is a district in Osaka, quite central, near the harbour. It is a very local area, for a very long time the community consists of old people, families, workers, fishermen, and some foreigners working at Universal City amusement park. In recent years more and more (often Chinese) investors discovered Konohana and since EXPO 2025 a lot of Airbnb welcome more and more tourists.
Since around 2006 or 2007 artists, musicians and young architects started moving into Konohana. The artist Henguchi is one of them, a central influential person, who introduced us to Konohana. He is also one important influence for us regarding walking as an art form – as an artistic practice.
In Konohana we also met the British sociologist Iza Kavedžija who wrote about artists in Osaka. »When asked to reflect on their own creative practice, they would frequently invoke images of movement. … they would emphasise the importance of moving one’s body – and they compare their own lives to a path, albeit one with a far less visible endpoint.«
It takes time to experience a district, and through Henguchi we understood that you can’t just point out anything interesting on a map and just talk a bit about it. The time it takes to go from one place to another, the smell, the atmosphere, – sometimes even the boredom – let the experience stick in your memory, and makes it easier to understand. Walking is also very helpful if you don’t speak the same language. – it’s a different kind of language in which you communicate without too many words.«