shashasha

Named after a yearning, romantic phrase describing the sea wind blowing in the spring and summer in Japan’s oldest book of poetry, “Ayu no Kaze” by Japanese artist Asako Shimazaki takes its readers along a wistful, pensive journey into her personal past. Having left Japan behind to live in the Bay Area, Shimazaki nonetheless returns home every now and then to the country where she grew up, the country of her parents and ancestors. In poetical black-and-white, she renders Japan as it feels to her, filled with memories, feelings, regrets and hopes, at once intimate and yet universal.

“These wonderful and modest pictures are captivating in the best and original sense of the word — they grab us by their distinctive and particular vision and persuade us that what this photographer saw was both marvelous and true. While they seem deceptively simple they are astonishingly perceptive …
Perhaps the best gift is her surprise — these pictures are all discoveries, they are funny or gently strange … We are grateful for her special, modest kindness, her good humor, and her enchantment with the world.”
― from Sandra S. Phillips’ afterword “Asako Shimazaki’s Japan”

All texts included in Japanese and English.