shashasha

UNTITLED RECORDS is a new series of photographic booklets conceived by Keizo Kitajima, which will compose a collection of more than twenty issues, published four times per year.

This kind of project is not unexpected for Kitajima, who already began his photographic career in 1979 with twelve issues of Photo Express Tokyo, in which he vividly portrayed the men and women filled with an urban atmosphere of that period. But our time differs profoundly from the 1970s: the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the liberal economy booming worldwide, the Internet network and supply chain spread everywhere, the shock doctrine and market liberalization in all areas, civil and local conflicts bogging down here and there, etc.

Regarding Japan, the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and of Fukushima nuclear accidents is always cruel and insistent. All these events have often given the impression that the reality in front of us turned suddenly into another thing entirely unfamiliar. While photographing the stricken area in Fukushima and Sanriku, Kitajima realized that the staggering reality before him was not free from the influence of the permeating images, which had also an overwhelming reality. We are in an era where a single and objective point of view might not be enough to observe and understand the world.

• UNTITLED RECORDS is an ongoing series, composed of more than 20 issues, with four issues being published each year
• The locations photographed for the series span all regions of Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, including Sanriku and the disaster areas of Fukushima
• “Untitled Records Vol. 10” has been photographed in Okinawa and includes images shot between the years 2005 and 2016