Shigeru Yoshida photography 写真家吉田繁

THE SOLO SHOW AT THE Timiryazev STATE BIOLOGY MUSEUM IN MOSCOW

The Solo Exhibition in " The Timiryazev State Biology Museum " in Moscow.

held on November 19th to December 15th, 2019
Shigeru Yoshida has been taking a journey of looking for big trees around the world for over 20 years. He says it’s hard to find a big tree. But he has long been able to concern about the theme is because he was taught to be thankful not only for big trees themselves but nature and people that surround him. He gave a lecture to talk about his concerns. The interacting with Russian people who love trees, forests and nature was invaluable experience.

Historic museum; The K.A. Timiryazev STATE Biology Museum

The K.A. Timiryazev Biology Museum has been established since 1922, named after the famous Russian biologist, Timiryazev. It holds 60,000 collections of items and is famous for the fabulous exhibits of plants, animals, ecology and genetics. It is a popular facility for children in Moscow.

The Russian-style museum was built more than 100 years ago. The exhibition space was 9,000 square meters and was really vast. Yoshida’s e-Poster of the exhibition appeared on its magnificent gate of the building during the exhibition days.

We got a lot of assistance from those two people. Maria Rakhcheeva (left) was a director of the museum, who achieved this exhibition “The unique trees on the planet”. And Andrey Martynov (center) was a curator of the exhibition. We were all grateful for their achievements.

A wonderful exhibition with lots of creativity

The exhibition room of Shigeru Yoshida was just a short walk from the entrance. Before entering the room, people noticed this big profile board which was displayed a prominent place.

A grid resembling traditional Japanese shoji screens were set up so that people can feel Japan. And the prints, the scientific names and the explanations were attached with great care.

There were also questions with illustrations on the board. Visitors tried to guess the name of the tree by its leaves, flowers and berries. It was unique to the biology museum that all the generations could learn with enjoyment.

The genuine tree and fruits were also exhibited. Just as expected of the biology museum, there were baobab berries, too. It was such a great exhibition with a huge collection of natural life forms.

It’s different from the art photography exhibition but visitors spent so much time seeing all the photographs. We were happy to see visitors’ faces with full of the sense of wonder and discovery.

Yoshida brought his ambrotype photographs and showed Masakazu Takahashi of the Japan foundation in Russia and Anna Andreyeva, a director of the museum and also helped us as an interpreter.

There was a world map in the exhibition room. The picture of a big tree was put on the place on the map. It made easy to know where the photo was taken. There were two exhibition rooms. What attracted people the most was the photo of yellow ginkgo trees and Japanese wisteria in full bloom. Many visitors said they wanted to see the real one in Japan.

The opening ceremony on 18th Nov, 2019

The lecture presentation was led by Maria, a director of the museum. Andrey, a curator and Mr. Takahashi from Japan Foundation in Russia gave message to the audience. Shigeru Yoshida gave one too at the end of the session.

Shigeru Yoshida’s handmade scroll typed print on washi paper was popular among visitors. It seemed that the unfamiliar big tree and mysterious tone of the photo matched well.

There were some Russian sweets and fruits. They prepared even Russian wine. We had a valuable time with visitors talking about trees in various countries and environmental issues.

The lecture on 19th Nov, 2019

The world’s biggest tree is a baobab tree which trunk circumference is 45 meters in South Africa. To know how large the tree trunk was, all participants made a 45 meter circle with a long string.

Yoshida showed short movie of his journey of searching big trees and talked about his experiences, which was really interesting. All the audience took note and photos enthusiastically.

This is Nataliya Pushkova, an interpreter. Thanks to the cooperation of Japan Foundation in Russia, we could find her. She had lived in Japan for a long time and she spoke beautiful Japanese. We thought her Japanese was better than Japanese people.

In Yoshida’s lecture, he talked about the most impressive tree and a tree that had finished its life leaving many seedlings. He also talked about the world’s oldest tree of 4,800 years old. The story of trees had a commonality with people’s lives.

Yoshida was asked for pictures by visitors. People who love trees and nature looked alike even in different countries. They were all gentle and warm.

〝The unique trees on the planet” @The K. A. Timiryazev Biology Museum

We are all thankful for a lot of staff who had helped us at the exhibition. Special thanks to Andrey Martynov, a curator of the exhibition, Maria Rakhcheeva of The K.A. Timiryazev Biology Museum, staff of Japan Foundation in Russia, Nataliya Pushkova, an interpreter. We thank all of you for your kindness and hospitality. And we also thank all the visitors. We have traveled to look for big trees over 20 years and hope our journey will never end. And we hope to deepen international exchanges with people who love trees. We are looking forward to the day we can meet you again soon. Thank you very much.