Background information
In 2004 Jitka HANZLOVÁ was invited by the EU-Japan Festival Committee to participate in the project 'European Eyes on Japan', which invites European photographers to Japan since 1999 to photograph people and life in the different prefectures of the country.
The single volume 'Cotton Rose', published in 2018, is the result of a two-year stay of the Czech photographer in Gifú Prefecture, where she visited towns and villages, attended ceremonies, learned Japanese and even got into conversation with Tajima cattle to get to know the country, rural life and traditions before mixing with the anonymous crowds in the cities. For Jitka HANZLOVÁ, modern Japanese culture was an important aspect and she focused on the inherent connection between people and their environment in a country of seemingly extreme contrasts. The delicate and tender cotton rose - a plant she discovered at the very beginning of her stay, which reappears in spring despite all the harsh winters - symbolized for her the Japanese soul: fragile and persistent at the same time.
Content
Nature being an important aspect even of modern Japanese culture, Jitka HANZLOVÁ focused in the series for the photo volume 'Cotton Rose' on the intrinsic connection between the people and their environment in a country of seemingly extreme opposites. The frail and tender cotton rose — a plant she discovered at the very beginning of her stay which, against all odds, reemerges in spring after surviving the harsh winters — came to symbolize for her the Japanese soul: fragile and tenacious at once." (© Steidl Verlag, 2018)
About the Czech photographer, Jitka HANZLOVÁ (b. 1958, in Nachod)
Photo books by Jitka HANZLOVÁ
- Format
- Linen bound HC (no dust jacket, as issued), 22,5 x 29 x 2 cm., 88 pp., 46 color ills., text language: English