ILAN DERECH

イラン・デレック

Exploring time through photography and slow cinema.

Featured Pieces
A small collection of moving triptychs.
Heart of Water 「水の心」
2024-2025
Everlasting Sakura 「永遠の桜」
2024
The Girl & The Swan 「少女と白鳥」
2024
Sacred Wind 「聖なる風」
2023-2024
White Flower 「白花」
2024
Frozen Memories 「凍った記憶」
2024-2025

ILAN DERECH

イラン・デレック

Exploring time through photography and slow cinema.

Ilan Derech is a multidisciplinary artist exploring time and perception through still photography and slow cinema. His work transforms fleeting moments into immersive experiences where stillness and motion coexist. Rooted in street and travel photography, his practice extends and reshapes time, not as something to measure, but to feel. In a culture of acceleration, his pieces invite a shift from observation to sensation.

イラン・デレフは、静止写真とスローシネマを横断しながら、時間とその知覚を探求するマルチディシプリナリー・アーティストである。彼の作品は、日常における束の間の瞬間を、静と動が共存する没入的な体験へと変容させる。 ストリートおよび旅の写真に根ざした彼の実践は、時間を測る対象としてではなく、感じ取るものとして拡張し、再構成する。加速する現代文化の中で、彼の作品は観察から感覚への移行を促す。

Selected Works
A small collection of moving triptychs.
Selected Work I
2024
Selected Work II
2023
Selected Work III
2024
Selected Work IV
2022
Selected Work V
2021
Selected Work VI
2023

ILAN DERECH

イラン・デレック

Experimenting with time through stillness in motion.

静けさの狭間

Moments Between Stillness

生きる記憶
"Living Memories"
Artist Notes As an immigrant, I left my entire life behind. The only things that remained with me in this new country were my cameras and my memories. That experience made me realize how precious those fleeting moments in life truly are. As I grew closer to Japan, my new home, I began to see the world differently. Learning from its people and its culture, I discovered the value of intentionality, meaning, and staying rooted in what makes us human. Through its arts and literature, my perspective slowly shifted, and a bridge between two worlds began to emerge. Everything seemed to slow down. The smallest details became the focus of my attention, and I began to notice moments of quiet harmony. Fragments that were mesmerizing on their own, yet when brought together became timeless. Moments that seemed to find each other and that, through these works, now belong together. Water rippling as a swan glides past. Sakura petals dancing gently in the wind. Snow drifting softly with the winter breeze. Night lights shimmering across the Tokyo skyline. Neon rain washing the streets of Tokyo in electric colors. Warm spring light filtering through the trees, casting quiet shadows. Part of this sensibility is inspired by Japanese meditative practices: the act of observing something simple until, gradually, the mind clears and we return to the present moment. Over time, my practice began to move toward cinema. I became interested in extending the stillness captured through photography, unfolding fleeting moments in time and transforming them into what I call Living Memories.
作家ノート 移民として、私はそれまでの人生のすべてを後にしてこの国へやってきた。新しい土地に持って来ることができたのは、カメラと記憶だけだった。その経験を通して、私は一瞬の出来事がどれほど大切なものなのかを深く実感するようになった。 日本という新しい故郷に少しずつ近づいていくなかで、私は世界の見え方が変わっていくのを感じた。人々や文化から学ぶなかで、意図をもって生きること、意味を見出すこと、そして人間らしさの根に立ち返ることの大切さを知った。日本の芸術や文学に触れることで、二つの世界のあいだに静かな橋が架かっていった。 やがて、すべてがゆっくりと流れるように感じられるようになった。小さなディテールに自然と目が向き、静かな調和の瞬間に気づき始めた。ひとつひとつの断片はそれだけでも魅力的だが、それらが集まることで時間を超えたような感覚を生み出す。まるで互いを見つけ合うように、これらの作品の中でひとつの流れとして結びついていく。 白鳥が滑るように泳ぐ水面に広がるさざ波。 風に舞う桜の花びら。 冬の風に運ばれて静かに漂う雪。 東京の夜景にきらめく街の灯り。 ネオンに照らされた雨が東京の街を電気のような色で染める。 木々のあいだから差し込む春の光が落とす静かな影。 こうした感覚の一部は、日本の瞑想的な実践から影響を受けている。単純なものを静かに観察し続けることで、やがて思考は静まり、私たちは自然と現在の瞬間へと戻っていく。 やがて私の実践は次第に映像へと広がっていった。写真の中にある静けさを時間の中でゆっくりと解きほぐし、瞬間を引き延ばしながら、それらを「Living Memories|生き続ける記憶」へと変えていくために。
Living Memories息づく記憶
Featured Piece注目作品
Heart of Water 「水の心」
2024
Sacred Echoes「聖なる響き」
2023
The Girl and the Swan「少女と白鳥」
2024
Nights of Neon「ネオンの夜」
2025
Everlasting Sakura「永遠の桜」
2024
Sacred Wind「聖なる風」
2024
Exhibitions & Showcasings
Selected presentations, screenings, and installations.
Poetic Architecture
BeComing Art
Jeju Island, South Korea · 2025
A large-scale projection mapping work presented as part of Moments Between Stillness, exploring time, architecture, and immersive visual rhythm.
Tour First, La Défense
Artpoint
Paris, France · 2024
A quiet series of moving images investigating shadow, grain, and the choreography of light across urban surfaces.
Non Fungible Conference
Grida
Lisbon, Portugal · 2023
A restrained screening installation: long takes, minimal cuts, and an editorial pacing designed for an immersive, gallery-like watch.
·

Ilan Derech is a multidisciplinary artist exploring time and perception through still photography and slow cinema. His work transforms fleeting moments of everyday life into immersive visual experiences where stillness and motion quietly coexist.

Emerging from a foundation in street and travel photography, his practice begins with attentive observation and extends moments beyond their passing. By stretching and reshaping time, Derech invites a slower way of seeing. In a culture defined by acceleration, his works encourage a shift from observation to sensation, where time is not measured, but felt.

Exhibitions & Showcasings

Selected presentations, screenings, and installations.

Non Fungible Conference

Grida
Lisbon, Portugal · 2023

An immersive installation presenting Living Memories, Through large-scale projections surrounding the space, the works create an environment where viewers are invited to pause and inhabit the moment. The installation uses repetition, spatial rhythm, and a restrained visual language to draw attention to micro-movements that often go unnoticed. As the images loop and evolve, the space becomes a quiet cinematic environment that transports viewers into contemplative scenes drawn from Japan.

Poetic Architecture

BeComing Art
Jeju Island, South Korea · 2025

A large-scale architectural projection presented as part of Moments Between Stillness. The installation transforms the rigid surface of the building into a living canvas where water, light, and slow gestures unfold across the façade. The work explores the contrast between permanence and ephemerality. The strength and geometry of the architecture frame the softness and fluidity of the imagery, allowing the building itself to become part of the composition. Through this dialogue between structure and motion, viewers experience fleeting moments suspended within the monumental scale of the space.

Tour First, La Défense

Artpoint
Paris, France · 2024

Presented within the architectural interior of Tour First in La Défense, this installation integrates Living Memories into the vertical flow of the building. Towering digital totems extend the works across multiple floors, transforming transitional spaces into moments of quiet observation. Within the environment of glass, stone, and steel, the moving images introduce rhythm, light, and human presence. As viewers pass through the building, the works appear like windows into distant places, briefly immersing the audience in scenes where everyday life unfolds with cinematic stillness.

Collaborations

Selected interviews, features, and collaborations.

Street Photography in Tokyo

ZEISS · 2025

A collaboration with ZEISS exploring Tokyo at night through the Otus ML 1.4/35, capturing fleeting urban moments and transforming them into cinematic fragments of time.

Watch on YouTube →

Interview: On Seeing & Silence

NOWNESS · 2024

A quiet conversation on process, restraint, and the choreography of light—how images become memory without announcing themselves.

Watch on YouTube →
Collaborations
Selected interviews, features, and collaborations.
Street Photography in Tokyo - ZEISS Otus ML 1.4/35
ZEISS2025-2026
In Tokyo at night, Ilan Derech moves through the city guided by a single intention: to compose his story. With the ZEISS Otus ML 1.4/35, fleeting encounters become cinematic moments. Framing becomes choice. Perspective becomes narrative. Light becomes memory. Every decision shapes time. What remains in the frame. What falls away. Where one chooses to stand. Step into the night. See with intention. Compose your story.
London by night: A photographer's view of urban mobility
ZEISS2023-2024
For Ilan Derech, mobility is movement through time as much as space. Traveling alone with his camera, he observes the pulse of urban life where footsteps, transport, light, and architecture converge in fleeting alignments. Rather than simply documenting motion, he explores how it feels, how it repeats, and how it disappears. In cities like London, movement becomes atmosphere. The street unfolds as choreography, where stillness and flow coexist within the same frame.

Ilan Derech

Mexico City, 1990

Ilan Derech is a multidisciplinary artist working between photography and cinema, whose practice explores time, perception, and the quiet poetry of everyday life. Born in Mexico and now based in Japan, his work emerges from the intersection of these two cultural landscapes, blending the observational traditions of street photography with the contemplative pacing of slow cinema. Through moving images and still photographs, Derech transforms fleeting gestures and unnoticed moments into immersive visual experiences that invite viewers to slow down and feel the passage of time.

Derech’s work draws inspiration from a range of visual and literary traditions, from the quiet narrative power of classic cinematography to the refined simplicity of Japanese aesthetics such as ukiyo-e and haiku. His approach to image-making reflects this influence: moments are carefully composed yet grounded in observation, allowing everyday scenes to unfold with a sense of rhythm and stillness. In 2020, while traveling through Asia, Derech became unexpectedly stranded in Tokyo during the COVID-19 pandemic. What began as a period of uncertainty gradually transformed into a defining moment in his practice. Walking the city with his camera each day, he began to reinterpret fleeting encounters through the structure of visual haikus. This exploration eventually evolved into Living Memories, a body of work in which each piece is carefully constructed to immerse the viewer within a moment. Through looping compositions and extended durations, the works invite the viewer to feel present within the scene, gently slowing their perception and synchronizing their mindset with the contemplative pace of the image.
イラン・デレックは、写真と映像のあいだを横断しながら制作を行うマルチディシプリナリー・アーティストである。彼の実践は、時間や知覚、そして日常のなかに潜む静かな詩情を探求することに向けられている。メキシコに生まれ、現在は日本を拠点に活動するデレックの作品は、この二つの文化的風景の交差点から生まれている。ストリートフォトグラフィーの観察的な視点と、スローシネマの瞑想的なリズムを重ね合わせながら、彼は一瞬の身振りや見過ごされがちな出来事を、時間の流れを感じさせる没入的な視覚体験へと変換していく。 彼の作品は、古典映画の静かな物語性から、日本の浮世絵や俳句に見られる簡潔で洗練された美意識に至るまで、さまざまな視覚的・文学的伝統から影響を受けている。観察を基盤としながら丁寧に構成されたイメージは、日常の風景のなかに潜むリズムや静けさを浮かび上がらせる。 2020年、アジアを旅していたデレックは、COVID-19パンデミックの影響により東京で思いがけず足止めされることとなった。その時間はやがて彼の制作における重要な転機となる。カメラを手に街を歩く日々のなかで、彼は出会う一瞬の出来事を俳句の構造になぞらえた視覚的な断片として再構成し始めた。 この探求はやがて《Living Memories|生き続ける記憶》へと発展する。そこでは、それぞれの作品が観る者をひとつの瞬間のなかへと導くよう緻密に構成されている。ループする時間と引き延ばされた持続のなかで、観る者の感覚は作品の静かなリズムに同調し、やがてその場に立ち会っているかのような感覚へと導かれていく。

Copyright © 2024 Derech & Kim Studio.

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東京、日本.

ILAN DERECH