WATANABE Koichi “Contrayerba in dreaming -detox plants history”

LAG is pleased to present “Contrayerba in dreaming -detox plants history”, a solo exhibition by WATANABE Koichi, on view from August 1 (Sat) through August 15 (Sat), 2026.

Throughout his practice, Watanabe has explored the relationship between plants and humans. As plants have travelled across the world through migration, trade, colonial expansion, medicine, and scientific inquiry, they have shaped not only natural environments but also the frameworks through which humans understand the world. Through photography and extensive research, Watanabe traces the historical trajectories embedded in plants and the complex networks surrounding them.

In his acclaimed photobook Moving Plants (2015), Watanabe focused on Japanese knotweed—a common wild plant in Japan that later became known as an invasive species in Europe and North America—revealing how the movement of plants is inseparable from the history of modernity. In Contrayerba in dreaming -detox plants history, he turns to “KONTARAERUHA,” a mysterious medicinal herb described in Edo-period medical texts, following its name through centuries of history.

Developed through extensive archival research, botanical references, historical documents, and fieldwork, the project is not an attempt to identify the true nature of a single plant. Rather, it examines how plants have been named, translated, classified, and transmitted through human knowledge and desire. At the same time, the plants themselves emerge in the photographs as beings that cannot be fully contained within human systems of understanding and classification.

Through works from the Contrayerba in dreaming -detox plants history series, the exhibition offers a renewed perspective on the relationship between plants and humans. More than visualizing history or social systems, the photographs invite viewers to reconsider the fundamental ways in which we name, interpret, and understand the world.