Tamaki Yoshida Artist Book JONOKUCHI Advance sales begin at RPS KYOTO PAPEROLES on April 18

04/17/2026

©︎Tamaki Yoshida / At the Threshold

Was the night we believed to be empty ever truly empty?
Tracing the signs left by a single brown bear, this work questions the boundary where human and wild domains overlap through the observation of absence and presence.
Tamaki Yoshida is an artist whose practice examines human behavior and the underlying assumptions of society through our relationships with wildlife.
Developed from research following the traces of a so-called “problem bear” that appeared in the town of Rausu, Shiretoko, over a four-year period beginning in 2018, the book is grounded in fieldwork conducted through trail cameras installed in the surrounding mountains and walks through the town at night. It forms the prologue to an ongoing project that considers the unstable boundary between human and more-than-human realms of life

Conceived following her participation in the 2023 Photobook as Object workshop at Reminders Photography Stronghold, and brought to completion through dialogue with Yumi Goto, this artist book has been produced in a limited edition of 59 copies. That number corresponds to the total number of bears captured in Rausu between 2018 and July 2022, up to the point at which the so-called “problem bear” that gave rise to this project was finally captured.

In connection with the publication, the two-person exhibition Threshold: Images in Flux by Tamaki Yoshida and Kazuhiko Matsumura will be presented at RPS KYOTO PAPEROLES from April 18 to May 10, 2026, as part of KG+ 2026 SPECIAL EXHIBITIONS.

The book will be available first at the exhibition venue, and also at KYOTOGRAPHIE PHOTOBOOK FAIR 2026, held on May 9–10, 2026. Related talk events are also being planned, with further details to be announced as they are confirmed. Please stay tuned for online sales.

Night landscapes, traces, and lingering presences — we invite you to experience within the book the unstable boundary that gradually comes into view as its pages are turned.

“At the Threshold”

In recent years, the annual number of brown bears culled in Hokkaido has continued to rise, surpassing 2,000 in 2025—the highest figure since records began.
Preceding this increase, a single brown bear was captured in 2022 in the town of Rausu on the Shiretoko Peninsula. Beginning in 2018, the animal had repeatedly appeared in residential areas over the course of four years, attacking pet dogs tethered outside private homes. It came to be referred to as a “problem bear,” an individual understood to have crossed the boundary between human habitation and the realm of the wild.
This incident suggested that the division long assumed to separate human living space from wildlife territory was, in reality, far more ambiguous than previously believed.
Tracing the signs left by this individual, I installed trail cameras in the mountains of Rausu while also walking through the town at night, where bears were known to appear. What emerged was not the animal itself, but the sense of a possible presence. Had we truly been looking at the night we had trusted as empty? What appeared to be a void may not have been absence, but simply something that had gone unseen.
The boundary, perhaps, does not reside in the landscape itself, but in the way we perceive it.
This work serves as the point of departure for an ongoing research project that considers the unstable boundary between human and more-than-human realms of life. Through the observation of traces, landscapes, and absence, the project explores how the concept of separation is formed, and how it shapes contemporary understandings of coexistence.

ー Tamaki Yoshida

ABOUT “At the Threshold”

・Edition of 59 (Hand-numbered & signed)
・Photography, Photography, text, editing, printing, binding : Tamaki Yoshida
・Editorial Support, Project Development | Yumi Goto / Reminders Photography Stronghold
・Size :275mm×225mm×30mm
・Pages : 116pages
・Weight : Approx. 890g
・Language : Japanese (English translation included)
・Price: 13,200 JPY (Tax included, shipping extra)