Photographer Koki Yamada presents Nahar — Ranthambhore at Hillside Forum in Daikanyama, Tokyo. This exhibition is the first major review of Yamada’s work, and it represents the culmination of a series that he has been working on for many years. The production of his first large-format monograph is also underway, including the works from this exhibition. Yamada talks of humans and wildlife moving forward together, and this is the focus of his series, which constitutes an in-depth exploration of a specific example of coexistence between nature and humankind.
At the heart of the exhibition are the wild tigers that Yamada has been photographing at the Ranthambhore National Park in India. The Bengal tiger, called nahar by locals, is an apex predator. Positioned at the top of the food chain, it acts as a symbol for Ranthambhore because of its role in maintaining the balance of the ecosystem. The tigers are also intimately linked with local community livelihoods as a tourism resource. However, the presence of the tigers raises a number of issues. In addition to the need to preserve the ecosystem, there are issues that highlight complex environmental challenges faced by contemporary society, including changes to the natural environment due to the growing human population and the local economy’s increasing orientation towards tourism, and issues associated with sustaining the protected areas.
Ranthambhore National Park used to be hunting grounds for the Maharajas of Jaipur. The area was designated a wildlife sanctuary in 1955, then made a National Park in 1980. Today, protection has enabled the tiger population to grow, but increased contact with humans raises new concerns. Through his photographs from Ranthambhore, including a slide show with narrative, Yamada turns a spotlight onto the environment for the tigers, and onto the issues for our society that become visible as a result.
The exhibition also shows the forests that are growing back around the remains of Ranthambhore Fort, a hill fort constructed in about the tenth century, and the habitat around the lakes that supports a wealth of wildlife. It provides an opportunity to think about the preservation of habitat for the tigers, these magnificent predators, and to consider how that relates to preservation of the global environment and to our own future.
Koki Yamada’s photographs of the tigers and the world that they live in capture their beauty, their ephemerality, and their power, bringing the chance to discover new connections with nature.