It’s estimated that around 80% of people grow up with at least one brother or sister. Sibling relationships can be some of the closest, or most complex, bonds we have, forged through shared histories and formative moments. This is the central idea of Playing the Piano Upstairs, an exhibition at The Print Sales Gallery at The Photographers’ Gallery, London, by UK-based Japanese artist Sayuri Ichida (b. 1985).
Ichida and her sister lost their mother to cancer during their late teens, which led to the development of “a fragile yet enduring closeness” between them. Over time, as their bond was shaped by “years of silence, conflict and care,” photography became a way for Ichida to trace their changing relationship, whilst reflecting on personal memories and experiences of grief. The result is a collection of atmospheric portraits in which her sister is the main subject. She often appears alongside natural forms – branches, reeds, open bodies of water – and many of the photographs are set in the snow-covered landscape of Niigata, Japan. The coastal location is significant: it’s their hometown and a place Ichida describes as a “visual metaphor for memory itself: mutable, obscured, yet softly glowing below the surface.”
A tension between beauty and unease runs throughout the series, as it shifts from darkness to light and back again. Reflecting on Niigata, Ichida, who is now based in Margate, says: “Our father worked at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant [located in Niigata] – the world’s largest. As kids, we played on the beach in summer and watched the towers flicker at night, finding the sight somehow magical. Since the Fukushima disaster, that same coastline has come to embody both nostalgia and anxiety, its beauty now inseparable from unease.” The exhibition’s name is also rooted in childhood recollections. “We both took piano lessons growing up. My sister was completely absorbed by it – she would come home from school and play for hours, almost pouring all her emotions into the keys. That memory inspired the title.”
In some pictures, Ichida’s sister appears almost ghostly, fading in and out of focus, her face concealed or partially obscured. In one shot, she seems almost spliced in two – her double silhouette, cut out in shocking red, leaves traces across the page as her face shifts from one position to the next. Other images focus on the natural environment, with bright green foliage starkly contrasted against a black background, or a bevy of swans gathering on dark water at night, their bodies faintly illuminated. One of the most immediately impactful takes place inside a tunnel, where two figures stand face-to-face against a blue toned expanse of snow. It’s almost reminiscent of a James Turrell installation, such is the command of colour and light.
Beyond subject matter, what is striking is the work’s tactile quality: surfaces are layered with snowfall, multiple exposures and subtle textures. There’s a reason for this: each print is produced by hand using vivid archival pigments and the painstaking photopolymer photogravure process on delicate Japanese washi paper. Time and endurance are inscribed not only into what we see, but how the images are made. When seen in real life, as The Photographers’ Gallery notes, “the prints themselves seem to glow.”
“Longing” and “timelessness” are two elements that Ichida describes as being essential to her work, and Playing the Piano Upstairs is imbued with both. The use of traditional processes means these images would be as at home in the early 20th century as they are today. It is this quality that makes them so compelling: they speak across time to one of the most painful yet universal aspects of human experience. We are all, as musician and writer Nick Cave so eloquently puts it, “creatures of loss.” This is a contemplative and moving exhibition by a gifted printmaker, one that prompts us to think deeply about the familial ties that bind us.
Playing the Piano Upstairs runs until 13 September.
The Print Sales Gallery at The Photographers’ Gallery, London | thephotographersgallery.org.uk
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. Sayuri Ichida Phoka #019, 2023 Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery
2. Sayuri Ichida Phoka #006, 2023 Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery
3. Sayuri Ichida Phoka #001, 2022 Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery
4. Sayuri Ichida Phoka #044, 2025 Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery
5. Sayuri Ichida Phoka #027, 2025 Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery
6. Sayuri Ichida Phoka #033, 2025 Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery
7. Sayuri Ichida Phoka #038, 2025 Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery
8. Sayuri Ichida Phoka #040, 2025 Courtesy of the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery
