shashasha

Originally published in 2005 by Shumpusha, this newest edition of Shoko Hashimoto's photobook Kitakamigawa is a visual assemblage of images taken in between the 1950s to the late 1980s along the Kitakami river located in the Tohoku region of Japan. Born in1939 in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, Hashimoto graduated from the prestigious photography department of Nihon University in 1963. The photographs assembled within the edition offers viewers once again, the opportunity to glimpse into the lives of the people and their community living alongside the Kitakami river, reflecting more so Hashimoto's own notions of home and familiarity. Here Hashimoto beautifully captures images which resonate within each viewer through exploring the perimeters of what is most familiar. Families, children, laborers and communal spaces are at the focal point of the images found within this publication. Using the river as metaphor, Hashimoto once again, transports the viewers into the intimate live and the nucleus of the family evoking and expressing the importance of community, its ideals and the important roles of which communal spaces play within our everyday lives.