shashasha

“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.