Yoshikatsu Fujii’s Photobook “Nagi” is sold out!

05/18/2024

Yoshikatsu Fujii’s Photobook “Nagi” is sold out!
Starting with “Red String” (2014) and “Incipient Strangers” (2015), Fujii has worked on the theme of family relationships. Since relocating to his hometown of Hiroshima, Fujii has been working on “Hiroshima Graph – Rabbits abandon their children” (2017) and “Hiroshima Graph – Everlasting Flow” (2020), both of which focus on the history of war in Hiroshima.
The current work, “Nagi” is the third work in the “Hiroshima Graph” project and an introduction to the main part of the work. Based on the testimony of Fujii’s grandfather, who was in the Navy in Kure, and his memories of the days he spent with his grandfather during his childhood, the film quietly expresses his gratitude for the peace that exists today and the importance of that peace. This is his first new work in three years, developed and completed under the mentorship of RPS’s Yumi Goto.

©︎Yoshikatsu Fujii / Nagi

This work back and forth between the present and the past, between imagined landscapes, and quietly speaks of gratitude for the peace that exists today and its importance, against the backdrop of the relationship between the land and the personal memories rooted in it. It is also a prelude to the main part of the work.

Ten years ago, when I first started taking photographs, I visited the ocean many, many times. I just photographed what I wanted to photograph until I was satisfied, but why was I so obsessed with the ocean? In search of the answer, I decided to look back at all the photos I had taken.
As I looked at the huge number of negatives, which were all of the sea, for some reason, I was suddenly reminded of the war experiences my grandfather had told me about when I was a child.

“I wasn’t caught in the atomic bombing.”
“I was in Kure.”
“I mean, in the Navy,” he said.
“There, I was making human torpedoes, too.”
“And of course, nobody told me what they were building, but the blueprints told it all.”

It was a childhood memory, but the first time I heard about my grandfather’s war experience was vividly etched in my memory.
However, it was unclear how my memories of my grandfather were connected to the photographs I had taken of the sea. So I decided to retrace my grandfather’s life.

It seems that the sea was always close by in my grandfather’s life.
He was born and raised in Kure, a military port town, and eventually joined the Navy. At the end of the war, a human torpedo called “Kaiten” was secretly manufactured there, and there were suspicions that my grandfather was involved in its manufacture.

How did he accept this and how did he live after the war?
Every time I researched my grandfather’s life and recalled childhood memories of spending time with him, I came to realize that his war experience had led to my obsession with the sea. And I could not help but realize the foolishness of war and how thankful I am to be able to live in peace.

This work was created using a vast number of photographs taken at sea over the past five years. This work is a work that moves back and forth between historical fact and memory, hoping that we can continue to live our ordinary everyday lives.

Yoshikatsu Fujii

Yoshikatsu Fujii’s Photobook “Nagi”

The “Nagi” is produced in a limited 73 copies with edition number and signature. sold out now!
Copyright ©2023 by Yoshikatsu Fujii
All Photographs copyright ©2023 by Yoshikatsu Fujii
Text copyright ©2023 by Yoshikatsu Fujii
Published by Yoshikatsu Fujii and Reminders Photography Stronghold
Editing cooperation and Art direction by Yumi Goto / Reminders Photography Stronghold English
Translation by Orine Ogiso
Printed and bound in Japan by Yoshikatsu Fujii
130 pages
Size (mm) : 210×270 ×20
Weight (g) : 365
Language: Japanese and English