The Pacific Tourist

(2015-2016)

 
 

STATEMENT

“The Pacific Tourist” combines the present pictures of two small Japanese islands with an old guidebook and archival images of the United States. The project is designed to misrepresent the time and place of its landscape photography.

Named as Nozaki Island and Ojika Island, the two belong to the Goto Archipelago and are located next to each other, floating on the western sea of Japan. Since the villages disappeared with capitalism, Nozaki Island has been almost untouched by now. Without being affected by the flow of the world, Ojika Island with the population of 2,800 co-exists with nature and maintains self-sufficiency and barter, too. When I visited these two islands for the first time in the summer of 2013, I felt as if I were in a foreign country. I had never seen the scenery before, nor heard the language before. Above all, I learned richness not regarding money or convenience there.

The idea of misperception is based on the uniqueness of the Japanese thought pattern. As an island nation, the Japanese have historically been aware, without consciously realising it, that there is something to be learned from foreign countries. I have certainly been one of them. For me, that foreign country has always been the United States. From my childhood, I had always pursued the capitalist affluence of America. But my visits to these islands have made me doubt that the "foreign country" I should be learning about is no longer the US.

I revisited the islands to document the landscape in September 2015 and completed as the project the following year. In January 2017, the Trump administration in the US began.

長崎県五島列島の野崎島と小値賀島の風景写真を、アメリカの古いガイドブックやアーカイブ画像と組み合わせた。それによって、風景の時間と場所を誤認させることを意図している。

資本主義とともに集落が消え、今はほぼ無人となった野崎島。世の中に流されることなく人が自然と共存し、自給自足や物々交換が今も息づく小値賀島。2013年夏に初めて訪れたこの２つの島は、私にとってまるで外国だった。見たことのない風景、聞いたことのない言葉。そして何よりも、お金や利便性ではない豊かさをそこで知った。

島国である日本人は、歴史的に「学ぶべきことは外国にある」と無意識に捉えている民族である。私も間違いなくその一人だった。そして、私にとっての外国はずっとアメリカだった。小さい頃から資本主義に基づくアメリカの豊かさを追い求めていた。しかし、この島々を訪れたことで、学ぶべき「外国」はもうアメリカではないかもしれないと疑うようになった。

ここにあるランドスケープは、2015年9月に再訪し撮影したものである。その翌年、私はプロジェクトを完成させた。アメリカにおけるトランプ政権が2017年1月から始まった。

ARTIST BOOK

Place of publication: Tokyo, Japan
Year: 2016
Dimensions: 14.0 x 18.5 cm
Pages: 100
Editions: 50
Type of printing: laser
Self-published (self-printing and hand-binding)

Concept, storyline, and art direction by Yumi Goto
In collaboration with Reminders Photography Stronghold 2016

Order here

Awards
*Self Publish Riga dummy contest 2016, shortlist

Exhibitions
*Photobook Bristol Dummy and First Book Table
*Steidl Book Award: Asia Open Call Exhibition
*First/Dummy Book Table at the second edition of Gazebook
*On the Shelf Exhibition at Filter Photo Festival 2016
*Photobook Market at Encontros da Imagem 2016
*INFOCUS Photo Books Exhibition 2016 

Reviews
*OAI13

EXHIBITION