In the closing years of the 19th century, seams of gold were found across the Alaskan wilderness, and hordes of white men descended on the region, in search of the glittering metal. Desolate mountains hitherto home only to small settlements of indigenous people were sliced open in the quest for veins of gold. The miners' footprints became paths, and later trails. Even over a century later, those trails include numerous reminders of the gold rush era, these legacies of gold fever now absorbed into the tranquility of the forests. If we accept that human beings cannot survive without obtaining something from nature in some form, in Alaska's history, the gold rush era surely rates as a major turning point. Despite the fact that up to then, people had simply been eking out an austere existence catching salmon, whales and seals and munching on berries, at a certain point they battled their way into the mountains in search of gold, something no human can eat. What significance does it have, what meaning, to photograph these gold rush legacies as if stepping back in time? At the very least that it is possible to set out on a new journey traveling a hundred years into the past. Peel back the modern layer of the pipeline on the Alaskan landscape, and a gold rush layer inevitably appears. Viewed freshly through this lens, the land takes on a totally different aspect to that of a well-traveled, familiar place. What sort of places will that journey take me? I hear murmurs, that traces of the giants of the past, of their dreams, are waiting beyond the mountains, deep in the forests, to be photographed.

Gentaro Ishizuka

Photographer. Born 1977. Winner of the Photographic Society of Japan's Newcomer's Award in 2004 for worldwidewarp. Major books include LENSMAN (Akaaka Art Publishing) and Glacier Diary, Glacier Bay. In recent years has traveled the globe photographing unusual landscapes connected to topical themes and featuring motifs such as pipelines, glaciers and gold rush legacies. In 2011 awarded an artist's fellowship for overseas study by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs. Has an exhibition scheduled at Iceland's Reykjavík Museum of Photography in September 2013.

GOLD RUSH ALASKA BONANZA TRAIL
Gentaro Ishizuka

Date : 22 March, 2013 - 6 April, 2013
Time : Weekday 11:00 - 20:00 / Saturdays and Holidays 11:00 - 18:30
Closed : Sundays and Mondays
Entrance Fee : 800 yen for over 18(Gallery916 & 916small)