shashasha

Sense of Place accompanies the epinomous Seiichi Motohashi exhibition at Izu Photo Museum. A documentary photographer of international recognition, Motohashi has been documenting the diversity of human lives since the 1960s. This photobook is the first to present the entire scope of his photographic career, and includes a wide selection from his body of work: among them Abattoir from 2001 - the first photobook to chronicle a Japanese slaughterhouse -, Ueno Station, and Chernobyl, in which Motohashi documents the harsh lives of the people refusing to leave their homes near the nuclear disaster area.

"Motohashi has spent decades examining the history and whereabouts of people who have been buried and forgotten amid the currents of sweeping social change — postwar economic growth, the energy revolution, the overhaul of transportation networks. What accounts for the appeal of his work? The photographer has engaged in an individual pursuit of a set of values that cannot be measured in terms of material affluence, and all of his work poses a quiet challenge to the modern society we have constructed."
— from the afterword, by Noi Sawaragi