Atelier EXB‘s new monograph, Shima no Ama, Kusukasu Uraguchi, accompanies the exhibition presented this summer at the Rencontres d’Arles.
For several centuries, ama – Japanese fishermen-divers – have nourished the Japanese imagination. These freedivers collect abalone, shells and algae, the sale of which ensures them financial autonomy within their household. Since the late 1950s and for more than thirty years, Kusukazu Uraguchi (1922-1988) photographed them in the Shima region, along the Pacific coast in northern Japan. The result of significant research work among nearly 40,000 negatives – almost all unpublished – this remarkable archive of landscapes, portraits and underwater views tells both the daily life and the particular place of the amateur community. within Japanese society.
This book, under the direction of Sonia Voss, brings together for the first time Uraguchi’s photographs on the occasion of their exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arles starting in July at Montmajour Abbey.
Exhibition
Uraguchi Kusukazu. Ama
Rencontres d’Arles 2024
From July 1 to September 29, 2024
Abbaye de Montmajour
Rte de Fontvieille
13280 Arles, France
www.abbaye-montmajour.fr
Book
Kusukazu Uraguchi : Shima no Ama
Atelier EXB
Director: Sonia Voss
Texts : Chihiro Minato, Sonia Voss
Technical sheet
Two versions:
French and English
Hardcover, 22 × 28 cm
168 pages
119 B&W photographs
ISBN FR: 978-2-36511-402-8
ISBN ENG: 978-2-36511-420-2
Price: €49 including tax
www.exb.fr
