Signed, New

Kitakami River 1958-2005

Shoko HASHIMOTO

“Long ago, when ships were all made of wood
The wood was slender and curved
The ships were born with ribs,
giving off the scent of flesh
When the ships float on the sea
bonito, cod, and saury trailed behind like ropes.”
— from Mikiro Sasaki’s introductory poem, “A Memorandum for Shoko Hashimoto”

“Kitakami River 1958–2005” is the latest installment in Shoko Hashimoto’s long-term photographic record of life around his hometown of Ishinomaki in Miyagi Prefecture, in Japan’s Tohoku region. Expanding his focus beyond Ishinomaki itself, the series traces the Kitakami River from its source at the Mido Kannon temple to its estuary in Ishinomaki, capturing scenes and landscapes, many now lost to time, along its course. Through black-and-white and color photographs, Hashimoto (b. 1939) documents the transformations from the postwar years through Japan’s period of economic growth to the post-Bubble era of the late 1990s and early 2000s with immediacy and warmth.

- Book Size
257 × 182 mm
- Pages
96 pages, 78 images
- Binding
Softcover
- Publication Year
2025
- Language
English, Japanese
- Limited Edition
700
- ISBN
978-4-910244-44-0

Artist Profile

Shoko HASHIMOTO

Born in Ishinomaki in 1939, Hashimoto graduated from Nihon University, College of Art in 1964, specializing in photography. In 1974, he received the Newcomer Award from the Photographic Society of Japan with his photobook “Goze” (Nora-sha), documenting blind women entertainers who performed and told stories in exchange for food and shelter. In the same year, the series was selected for the “15 Photographers” exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and collected by the museum. Hashimoto actively photographed Lee Dynasty folk paintings in Korea from 1979 to 1981. He had travelled to Nagano, Yamagata, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Yamanashi and Miyagi prefectures to document the folk customs of Japan that were gradually disappearing as a photojournalist. Since 2011, he has regularly returned to photograph his hometown, Ishinomaki, which was devastated by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. His recent solo exhibitions include: “Goze” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2013; Zeit-Foto Salon, 2014), “Nishiyama Onsen — Empire of Nakedness” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2014), “A Village Lullaby” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2015), “Biwa Houshi” (Zeit-Foto Salon, 2016), “Literary Scholars” (Sokyusha, 2017), “Goze” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2020), “Goze — Shoko Hashimoto” (Ikeda Art Museum, Niigata, 2022), and “Goze” (AN-A Fundación, Barcelona, 2022). His publications include: “Goze” (Aron Shobo, 1988), “Kitakami River” (Shumpusha, 2014), “Nishiyama Onsen” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2014), “Kitakami River New Edition” (Shumpusha, 2015), “Undergrowth” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2016), “San’ya 1968.8.1–8.20” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2017), “Goze Asahigraph Reprint” (Zen Foto Gallery, 2019), “Goze” (New Complete Edition, Zen Foto Gallery, 2021), and "Ishinomaki" (Zen Foto Gallery, 2023)