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The sixth entry in Kazuyuki Kawaguchi’s ongoing documentation of small towns in Japan’s rural regions, shot between 2020 and 2022 as the relentless presence of the Coronavirus drastically affected people’s daily lives.

For his “Prospects” series Kawaguchi, whose photographic vision is attuned to the modern cityscape of Tokyo, travels through Japan to photograph sceneries and townscapes found in and between various small cities. His approach includes common sights as much as idiosyncratic peculiarities, captured with a remarkably neutral eye and imbued with a degree of detail that brings the beauty inherent in the slow decline of these once prosperous places to life. True to its name, Kawaguchi’s series observes the history of the documented places and considers their future prospects.

This sixth volume includes photographs taken in towns in the Kanto, Tohoku and Kansai regions all over Japan’s main island.