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Selections from the Photographic Archive of Kosen Ohtsubo, Presented by Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham, and in cooperation with Kosen Ohtsubo, Ryusei-ha, Empty Gallery, Ensō House, and Kunstverein München.
Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham is an artist whose practice, in part, has been the contextualization and presentation of the work of their ikebana sensei, Kosen Ohtsubo. Ohtsubo is one of the most significant practitioners of the medium over the past five decades, masterful in both classical and avant-garde approaches, so much so that he’s known as the Legend of Ikebana. Oldham’s work with Ohtsubo’s archive as both protégé and scholar reproduces ikebana’s circulation as photographic ephemera and echoes the medium's physical transience with a rotation of images that respond to mood and season.
For more information, read It's a Wow Thing, an exhibition essay by Amy Ching-Yan Lam and Steve Kado. Designed by Philip Leonard Ocampo.
Presented in association with the second Toronto iteration of Selections from the Photographic Archive of Kosen Ohtsubo at Hearth. That exhibition opens on Thursday, November 27, 7:00 - 10:00PM and is on view until on view until February 1, 2026.
Video documentation by Miles Rufelds
Christian Kōun Alborz Oldham is an artist, writer, and educator who, under the tutelage of Ohtsubo, became a master of freestyle ikebana in 2016. Between 2017 and 2018, Oldham digitized the majority of Ohtsubo’s sizable photo archive and has since lectured at a number of universities on the history and development of ikebana from its historical origins to its contemporary expressions. Oldham is the foremost scholar of Ohtsubo’s work and legacy and additionally is the founder of Flower Planet, a Berlin-based school for the practice and dissemination of materials related to ikebana.
Kosen Ohtsubo is one of the most significant living practitioners of the art form of ikebana. Ohtsubo rose to prominence in the 1960s due to his use of readily available materials such as vegetables and refuse. While formally trained in electrical engineering at Tokyo Denki University, for decades he served as the Headmaster’s Advisory Instructor of the Ryusei Ikebana School, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. His work and demonstrations have been presented in India, Hong Kong, Spain, Holland, England, Korea, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the United States. Documentation of Ohtsubo’s practice has been chronicled in two major publications in 1981 and 1995.
