“This world, where the sacred and the profane coexist, is as transient as the falling cherry blossoms. That is why it is worth photographing.”
― from Kenji Takazawa’s closing essay “Along the River Flowing Between Reality and Fiction”

In his work "Sakura River," Japanese photographer Atsushi Fujiwara photographed Sakuragawa in Ibaraki Prefecture from 2021 to 2023. Although seemingly mundane and unremarkable, Fujiwara recognized an extraordinary quality that lingered in every corner of the town. His photographs isolate individual aspects of local daily life without completely removing their context, allowing everyday sights such as signs, restaurant menus, staircases, leaves floating in the water, and ordinary views of the river the space they need to unfold.

-Book Size
200 × 200 mm
-Pages
120 pages, 110 images
-Binding
Hardcover
-Publication Year
2024
-Language
English, Japanese
-Limited Edition
500
-ISBN
978-4-910244-33-4

Artist Profile

Atsushi Fujiwara

Born in Shiga Prefecture in 1963, Fujiwara co-founded the photography magazine Asphalt with Shinichiro Tojimbara in 2008 and invited the photo editor Akira Hasegawa to edit the magazine, publishing ten volumes in total. Since 2013, Fujiwara has regularly published his own photo books and held solo exhibitions in Japan and abroad. His publications include: “Nangokusho — Ode to the Southern Lands of Japan” (2013), “Butterfly Had a Dream” (2014), “Poet Island” (2015), “Semimaru” (2017), and “2200 Miles” (2019), all published by Sokyusha.

Gallery Exhibitions