Personal statement by Japanese photographer, Asako SHIMZAKI
"No matter how our lives and culture have changed, 'Ayu no Kaze' returns every year. It means eternity to me." (Asako SHIMAZAKI)
Background information
"'Ayu no Kaze', found in Japan's oldest poetry book, is a sailor's saying meaning 'the wind of promise'. Similarly, as the ancient word 'Ayu' translates as 'the sea brings various things to the land,' the term has also spread throughout the Japanese islands and has been passed down through the lives of ordinary people, in folk songs sung by fishermen, merchants, travelers, and immigrants, for example. After moving to the United States of America, Asako SHIMAZAKI returned to Japan again and again to visit her homeland. As she travels alone early in the morning to work and roams from northern to central Japan and along the coast, there is hardly a person to be seen in her summer and winter landscapes. Traveling alone through the mild sun and fierce snowstorms, her images are an exploration of a land left behind.
Content
The photo book 'Ayu no Kaze' by Asako SHIMAZAKI is a diary of longing and serenity, poetically alluding to life transitions that are at once privately intimate and profoundly universal. The photographs land softly and quietly, emphasizing the grandeur of the inner and outer elements that flow through the landscapes and her lens." (© TBW, 2019)
About Japanese Photographer, Asako SHIMAZAKI
Photo books by Asako SHIMAZAKI
- Photographer(s)
- Asako SHIMAZAKI (JP)
- Format
- HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 16 x 22 x 1 cm., 80 pp., 30 b/w ills.
- Language(s)
- English
- Year of Release
- 2019
- Publisher
- TBW Books, USA
- Print run details
- 1st print run, ltd. to 750 copies