Yasuhiro Ogawa, Shimagatari, Japan, 2014

Apart from the larger main islands of the archipelago, there are about 300 inhabited islands in Japan. Most of them are tiny islands with small population of few hundreds, and almost of all inhabitants are elderly people. Those remote islands used to be vibrant with many inhabitants who were engaged in fishery and trading, but the islands’ population started to decline sharply just after the period of rapid economic growth in the 60’s and 70’s, thanks to the youngsters who left the islands for seeking better jobs.

I suspect that most of those islands will be deserted in the near future. I overlooked the sea, sitting on the empty beach. I believe our ancestors also overlooked the same sea, sitting on the same place. The sea never changes. Only our human life does the change, which grows, matures, and dies out as time goes by (the title Shimagatari means “talking about the islands”).

Shimagatari (it literally means “talking about the islands”) is a photo story documenting the remote islands of Japan, which are now facing severe depopulation and rural flight. The communities are dying in those islands. The remaining people are all aged and isolated. Traveling to those islands is like diving into the deep ocean of loneliness. I believe those landscapes of the islands are future landscapes of Japan itself, which are now dealing with steep decline of population, outpacing other countries on the globe.

「除了群島上較大的主要島嶼外，日本其實還有約300個有人居的島。它們大多數是小島，人跡稀少，只有數百居民，幾乎大部分都是老年人。而這些島嶼曾經充滿活力，但我懷疑由於人口老化及減少，大多數島嶼將在不久的將來被拋棄。這本書是我十年間到訪這些荒島的旅程成果。我坐在空曠的海灘上俯瞰大海。我相信我們的祖先也曾坐在同一地方，俯視過同一片海洋。海洋永遠不會改變，但隨著時間的流逝，只有人類的生命曾做出過改變，而這種改變只會不斷增長、成熟並消亡。」－小川康博

Video - “Shimagatari” by Yasuhiro Ogawa

Born in Kanagawa, Japan in 1968. B.A. in English literature from Kanagawa Univ. Japan. He started photography in early twenties and began professional career in 2000. He has had many solo and group exhibitions including “Futashika na Chizu” at Kodak Photo Salon, Tokyo (1999), “Slowly Down the River” at Nikon Salon Ginza, Tokyo (2006), “The Photographic Society of Japan New Comer Award Memorial Exhibition” at Tokyo and Moscow (2009), “Winter Journey” at Doozo Gallery, Rome, Italy (2013) , “Cascade” at Sokyusha Gallery, Tokyo (2017), “By the Sea” at Fuji Film Photo Salon, Tokyo (2018) and “Contes des iles et Paysages de la Mer du Japon” at Inbetween Gallery, Paris, France (2018). He is one of the participants of “PHOTOfest.KZ” in Astana, Kazakhstan, 2018.

He has published five photo books such as “Slowly Down the River” (Creo, 2008),“Shimagatari” (Sokyusha, 2014), “Cascade” (Sokyusha, 2017) “By the Sea” (self published, 2018) and “The Dreaming” (Sokyusha, 2020). He has won several awards such as the Taiyo Award for his first solo exhibition “Futashikana Chizu” (2000) and The Photographic Society of Japan New Comer Award for his first photo book “Slowly Down the River” (2009). He was a finalist at the Oskar BarnackAward (2006) and the Hayashi Tadahiko Award (2015). He currently lives in Tokyo.

關於藝術家：1968年生於日本神奈川縣。90年代初深受大師 Sebastião Salgado 的作品啟發而踏入攝影領域，目前作為自由攝影師並定居東京。他舉辦過多場個展和聯合展覽，出版了五本攝影集並曾獲得了多個獎項，包括他的第一個個人展覽《Futashika-na-Chizu》（1999年）獲第37屆太陽賞，以及第一本攝影集《Slowly Down the River》（2006年）獲得了日本攝影學會新人獎。

For more of Yasuhiro Ogawa’s work, see:
www.ogawayasuhiro.com
https://www.instagram.com/yasuhiropics
https://www.facebook.com/yasuhiro.ogawa.18/

This artist is represented by Blue Lotus Gallery, contact here if you are interested to know more about his work and wish to receive his artist catalogue.

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