SOLD OUT!
"My parents, who a owned photo studio, went missing after the 2011 tsunami. Our house was destroyed. It was a place for working, but also for living. I grew up there. After the disaster, I found my father’s lens, portfolio, and our family album buried in the mud and the rubble.
One day, I tried to take a landscape photo with my father’s muddy lens. The image came out dark and blurry, like a view of the deceased. Through taking it, I felt I could connect this world with that world. I felt like I could have a conversation with my parents, though in fact that is impossible.
The family snapshots I found were washed white, the images disappearing. The portraits taken by my father were stained, discolored. These scars are similar to the damage seen in my town, similar to my memories which I am slowly losing.
I hope to retain my memory and my family history through this book. By arranging these photos, I have attempted to reproduce it.
Concept, edit and art-direction developed in the 2016 Photobook as Object workshop by Yumi GOTO and Jan ROSSEEL in collaboration with Reminders Photography Stronghold
The ORIGINAL edition number of this photobook, 87, represents the number of years since the family-owned photo studio was first opened in 1930.
'The Restoration Will' is dedicated to my father, Atsushi Sasaki and my mother, Katsuko Sasaki, who have not yet been found since March 11, 2011. I would also like to thank my sister, Hirono Sasaki and all friends and supporters from Onagawa. (...)
Some readers might feel sense of loss, others might perceive something heartwarming.
What I want to share with everyone is not the memory of the tragic Tsunami, but the 'mental restoration' one may experience after a devastating event. I also wish this book to be shared with those who harbor sorrow/grief within. Anyone experiences painful events in their lives. For me, March 11th, 2011, the day of the giant Tsunami, was the memorable day in my life.
Two weeks after the Tsunami, I went back to my home and picked up my fathers belongings in the rubbles. My parents must have died in deep regret. I thought I should make a mark of my parents’ lives and of my father’s life as a photographer. It became my attempt at restoration. It was my father’s will, and mine too.” (Mayumi SUZUKI)
Book reviews:
"This outstanding dummy tells, visually, the story of the loss of the photographer’s parents in the 2011 Tsunami that occurred in Japan. The jury found the visual story and the narrative very powerful, and also perceived the struggle in finding an adequate way of telling the story of a personal loss of such magnitude.
With the decision of awarding Mayumi SUZUKI, the jury is offering their support for the completion of this very personal project by turning this already strong dummy into a book. We realise how something that might have started as a way to deal with a personal loss, can turn into a project to share with a larger audience.
Reflected in this dummy, we see the struggle of the author and the challenges she had to face, and therefore we believe it has a huge potential. She was able to show her vulnerability on the pages, but not always she seems capable of finding a reaction to it on her own.” (PhotoBoox Award jury statement)
"There is such a profound silence found in this photobook. It is both a document and a memorial. 'The Restoration Will' by Mayumi SUZUKI brings together archival photographs rescued after the Tsunami in Japan from her family home and father’s photography studio in Onagawa, along with images created through a recovered camera lens.
To SUZUKI, the black and white photographs represent the imagined view of the deceased. These otherworldly, dense, and dark images give a sense of being both underwater and lost between life and the afterlife. They leave you breathless. Breathless when thinking about SUZUKI’s immense loss and breathless in a psychosomaticexperience of the photographs themselves subconsciously shutting down our own senses.
The artist book, now out of print, was produced in collaboration with Yumi GOTO and Jan ROSSEEL and the Reminders Photography Stronghold in Tokyo." (Larissa LECLAIR)
"My parents, who a owned photo studio, went missing after the 2011 tsunami. Our house was destroyed. It was a place for working, but also for living. I grew up there. After the disaster, I found my father’s lens, portfolio, and our family album buried in the mud and the rubble.
One day, I tried to take a landscape photo with my father’s muddy lens. The image came out dark and blurry, like a view of the deceased. Through taking it, I felt I could connect this world with that world. I felt like I could have a conversation with my parents, though in fact that is impossible.
The family snapshots I found were washed white, the images disappearing. The portraits taken by my father were stained, discolored. These scars are similar to the damage seen in my town, similar to my memories which I am slowly losing.
I hope to retain my memory and my family history through this book. By arranging these photos, I have attempted to reproduce it.
Concept, edit and art-direction developed in the 2016 Photobook as Object workshop by Yumi GOTO and Jan ROSSEEL in collaboration with Reminders Photography Stronghold
The ORIGINAL edition number of this photobook, 87, represents the number of years since the family-owned photo studio was first opened in 1930.
'The Restoration Will' is dedicated to my father, Atsushi Sasaki and my mother, Katsuko Sasaki, who have not yet been found since March 11, 2011. I would also like to thank my sister, Hirono Sasaki and all friends and supporters from Onagawa. (...)
Some readers might feel sense of loss, others might perceive something heartwarming.
What I want to share with everyone is not the memory of the tragic Tsunami, but the 'mental restoration' one may experience after a devastating event. I also wish this book to be shared with those who harbor sorrow/grief within. Anyone experiences painful events in their lives. For me, March 11th, 2011, the day of the giant Tsunami, was the memorable day in my life.
Two weeks after the Tsunami, I went back to my home and picked up my fathers belongings in the rubbles. My parents must have died in deep regret. I thought I should make a mark of my parents’ lives and of my father’s life as a photographer. It became my attempt at restoration. It was my father’s will, and mine too.” (Mayumi SUZUKI)
Book reviews:
"This outstanding dummy tells, visually, the story of the loss of the photographer’s parents in the 2011 Tsunami that occurred in Japan. The jury found the visual story and the narrative very powerful, and also perceived the struggle in finding an adequate way of telling the story of a personal loss of such magnitude.
With the decision of awarding Mayumi SUZUKI, the jury is offering their support for the completion of this very personal project by turning this already strong dummy into a book. We realise how something that might have started as a way to deal with a personal loss, can turn into a project to share with a larger audience.
Reflected in this dummy, we see the struggle of the author and the challenges she had to face, and therefore we believe it has a huge potential. She was able to show her vulnerability on the pages, but not always she seems capable of finding a reaction to it on her own.” (PhotoBoox Award jury statement)
"There is such a profound silence found in this photobook. It is both a document and a memorial. 'The Restoration Will' by Mayumi SUZUKI brings together archival photographs rescued after the Tsunami in Japan from her family home and father’s photography studio in Onagawa, along with images created through a recovered camera lens.
To SUZUKI, the black and white photographs represent the imagined view of the deceased. These otherworldly, dense, and dark images give a sense of being both underwater and lost between life and the afterlife. They leave you breathless. Breathless when thinking about SUZUKI’s immense loss and breathless in a psychosomaticexperience of the photographs themselves subconsciously shutting down our own senses.
The artist book, now out of print, was produced in collaboration with Yumi GOTO and Jan ROSSEEL and the Reminders Photography Stronghold in Tokyo." (Larissa LECLAIR)
- Format
- HC (no dust jacket, as issued), (7 3/4 x 11 inches), 104 pp., color & b/w ills., no text