Artist's Statement

Kogoro Suzuki

Mines, Plantations, and Factories

As the globalization progresses, the countries have come closer to each other, and the world today is linked in the most complicated and tightest manner ever. Despite this fact, the actual scenes from the global supply chain, which range from production, processing, marketing, to consumption, have become more and more distant from us, who are the final consumers. It is becoming more and more difficult for outsiders to enter the inside of these chains to take photos even in developing countries because the leakage of internal information or negative images to outside world may mean the company’s immediate dropout from the market. In this sense also, the world is linked by a very tight chain.

This series of photos is an effort to record the scenes of these supply chains. They are taken at the mines, manufacturing factories, and recycling workshops in Asia and Africa after I received an approval from these companies. I intend to visualize elements constituting the structure of our society through these photos. 

The objectives of this project are to make evident one cross-sectional surface of our society by recording accurate details and to acquire actuality of the world through the beauty that emerges upon the accumulation of these details.  I believe this is an effort to face the quintessence of photography.

This project is still ongoing and has no intended ending. This is because I believe the significance of these photos lies in the continuation of recording./p>