Prisoner road

About the project “Prisoner Road” The words “Seen” and “Unseen” are often used to describe one of the fundamental concepts of photography. I believe it is one of photography’s roles to make visible that which is difficult or impossible to see. With my project “Roadsight Lights,” which began 14 years ago, I try to capture unseen parts of our normal everyday lives in a way that makes them visible to the eye. In contrast, my new project “Prisoner Road,” which I started two years ago, is a proces...

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Roadside Lights I

One night 14 years ago, I drove through a snowstorm at night. Caught in a whiteout I lost track of where I was, but the familiar light from the vending machines guided me the way. Ever since then, vending machines have become something special to me. They are a window through which to view the world. Standing isolated alongside the road, vending machines lead a lonely existence. They are so commonplace in Japan that no one pays particular attention to them, but I see in them an image of the m...

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Being There

They can be found in metropolitan areas, of course, but also in the furthest corners of the mountainous areas and the end of a promontory. I had wondered in such cases, “Who uses this machine?” The vending machines do not appear in any special or extraordinary place. Rather, they appear in ordinary places: a non-descriptive end-of-the road or in front of someone’s house, for instance. Today, it won’t be an overstatement to say that the vending machine has become the most familiar sight that s...

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Railroad crossing

Once, as I was standing in front of a closed railroad crossing, I found myself in thought. Railroad crossings are places that exist anywhere. They are places where everyone has at least once stopped in their tracks. The gate descends; the warning bell sounds. In this town at Japan’s northernmost tip, a town without even traffic lights, the only place I stopped at all was the railroad crossing. I think back to my childhood, and I hear the strangely peaceful sounds of a railroad crossing. I can...

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Identity as Uygur

Where is the identity as Uygur heading to? This question always comes up to my mind when I visit Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region where everything is rapidly changing since my first visit. In elementary schools, Uygur children are now studying in Chinese, not in their own language anymore. They all sing Chinese songs and use Chinese textbooks. This area was once known as a frontier but now there are many streets lined with buildings. Old town becomes a tourist spot. To think about this situat...

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