ZEN FOTO GALLERY

With “The Wind Prays for Sublime Stillness,” Tokyo-based publisher Zen Foto presents the series that earned Toshiya Murakoshi the Kimura Ihei Award in 2023, when he first exhibited this body of work.
Murakoshi, born and raised in Fukushima, has photographed landscapes in and around his home prefecture since the beginning of his career. The works in this book form the fourth part of an ongoing series he has been making in Fukushima since March 2011, shortly after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami devastated the region.
With “The Wind Prays for Sublime Stillness,” Murakoshi sharpens his sensibility once more: the enigmatic allure of his quiet, initially unassuming landscapes feels more pronounced, yet without compromising their sensual depth or textural richness.

“Murakoshi’s photographs capture something that cannot be easily described in words. One finds a clue in the image, draws it towards oneself, and enters into it …
Every photograph in this book was taken within [Fukushima]. This is an important and unwavering truth.
It’s hard tot ell waht most of the forms in these photographs look like. The shades of grey appear between black and white, and even the black areas aren’t completely black; it’s as if something is hiding in the depths of the black.”
― from novelist Akiko Ohtake’s afterword “Not There, But Somewhere Else”