MID and Ground, Cozue Takagi's long-awaited first photobooks, are two separate volumes published simultaneously. One is a series of straight photographs and the other collage, and although the styles differ they are like twins for the artist. Both point towards something dynamic and heady. MID is the span between being born and dying, which can be taken as everything and as emptiness at the same time, and landscapes, animals and people appear in it as if standing on a black stage. The photographs seem the product of trepidation: using the camera flash to step forward carefully in an otherwise pitch-black environment, Takagi lets only the immediate vicinity come into view at any moment, which in itself brings surprise and disorientation. The sharpness of countless lives and deaths, and a sense of connecting with other times and spaces, make them straight photographs that go beyond the straight. Presenting two such distinct bodies of work at the same time points to the large trajectory of evolution Takagi seems to be on, moving through different modes of expression.