shashasha

“This story was supposed to come to an end with my grandmother’s death, which would no doubt come in the not-so-distant future. However, it unexpectedly ended in a different way.”

Akihito Yoshida’s series “Absence of Two” portrays the relationship between his cousin Daiki and the grandmother who has raised him on behalf of his busy parents. She was there for all his big moments and memories, and he would be there for last years and months. In Yoshida’s beautiful black-and-white images, we see Daiki’s unusually strong bond with his grandmother, him cutting her fingernails, bathing and dressing her, jokingly pinch her cheeks.
One day, Daiki disappears, never to return. “As if following in his footsteps, in the following year my grandmother passed away. The last things that remained were countless photographs of the two and their life together, all the time needed each other, supporting each other, and caring for each other.” — from the artist’s statement.