Poet Island
Atsushi Fujiwara
Sokyu-sha
Japanese
Hardcover
72 pages
240 x 280 mm
2015
ISBN: 9784904120477
Fujiwara Atshushi’s Poet Island is a beautiful and sentimental documentation of the abandoned spaces on Nagashima Island and Nagashima Aisei-en and Komyo-en, sanitariums where the diseased people of Hansen were quarantined away from the rest of Japan. Having initially visited the island when he was 8 years of age to see his uncle who served as the general manager of the island’s sanitarium, Fujiwara returned again 35 years later and came across a poem by the famous pre-war poet Kaijin Akashi who was amongst those quarantined on Nagashima. Here Fujiwara photographs the traces of life which were once lived by the inhabitants with a delicate intimacy. Empty rooms, buildings and spaces lay overgrown with plant life, reflecting both memories and familiar spaces from both the poet’s past as well as his own.
(Source: https://www.shashasha.co/en/book/poet-island)
About the Artist
Atshushi Fujiwara, born in 1963, Shiga, Japan is a photographer and founder of the photo magazine ‘ASPHALT’.
atsushifujiwara.com
About the Publisher
Sokyu-sha is one of the many galleries in Shinjuku Gyoen. As well as being a gallery space, it is also one of the most interesting photography bookstores in Tokyo.
(Source: https://www.shashasha.co/en/publisher/sokyusha)
