Atsushi Fujiwara (藤原 敦,Fujiwara Atsushi; born 1963) is a Japanese photographer. He is the co-founder of and the main contributor to the Japanese photo magazineAsphalt. His work has been exhibited both in Japan and internationally.
Fujiwara was born inOkayama City in 1963. His family soon moved toŌyamazaki (Kyoto), and moved again toShiga when he was at primary school.[1] He lived inYasu (Shiga) until he was 26,[2] and considers himself a native of Shiga.[1]
After working as an interior designer, Fujiwara went to Britain in 1989, working as an architectural designer and in the restaurant business. Back in Japan, in 2005 he set up a photographic studio.[3] A year later, he started out as a photographer,[4] this unusually late start being helped by the photographersKiyoshi Tanno [ja] andDaidō Moriyama.[4]
Together with the photographer Shin'ichirō Tōjinbara (唐仁原信一郎), Fujiwara set out to create a photography magazine,Asphalt, that would avoid the commercial priorities of mainstream Japanese photography and photography magazines, and that would run for just ten issues. From the second issue on, Akira Hasegawa (長谷川明) joined as editor, and the normal pattern was to combine work by Fujiwara, Tōjinbara and, as a guest photographer, someone who was not already a star but who instead merited exposure.[5] These guest photographers includedYang Seungwoo [ja]) and Takehiko Nakafuji (中藤毅彦).[n 1]Asphalt is in the holdings of several art museums outside Japan,[4][n 2] and its content is available online.[n 3]
Nangokusho: Ode to the Southern Lands of Japan (2013) was the first of four photobooks by Fujiwara to be published bySokyu-sha [ja], each of these containing work in black and white. It borrows the titleNangokushō (南国頌) from a collection oftanka by Fujiwara's grandfather, Tōmon Fujiwara (the pseudonym of Hiroji Fujiwara), who, after workplace conflicts elsewhere, had eventually settled down to a satisfying post as teacher inKagoshima.[6] The book presents photographs of Kagoshima from 2009 and 2010.[n 4]
Butterfly Had a Dream shows the family life inMiyako-jima and the work and single life in Tokyo of a professionalkinbaku practitioner. Her father, a suicide victim, had been a professional butterfly collector, and the book brings to mind the metamorphoses in the life of a butterfly.[n 5]
As a child, Fujiwara had visitedNagashima Aiseien, a leper sanatorium, whose general manager was an uncle of his. He returned there 35 years later, influenced byKaijin Akashi, who had beenincarcerated there and had died there, but whose poems continued to express joy despite his loss of sight and other physical decay.[7] For his bookPoet Island (2015), Fujiwara photographed the sanatorium and depicted mementoes of Akashi's.[8] Recommending an exhibition of these photographs at Zen Foto Gallery (Roppongi),Kōtarō Iizawa praised this and Fujiwara's two previous photobooks as of high quality.[8][n 6]
Asphalt photo exhibition,Rencontres d'Arles (Arles, France), 2010 (with work by Kōji Onaka and Photographer Hal);[10] Zen Foto Gallery (Beijing), 2011 (with work by Yang Seung-Woo and Muge);[11] Tanto Tempo Gallery (Kobe, Japan), 2012[citation needed]
Poet's island, Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2011.[13]
Butterfly had a dream, Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2012;[14] Tanto Tempo Gallery (Kobe, Japan), 2014; Reclaim Photography West Midlands 2016, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, England, 2016; 6th Different Dimension Festival, the State Novosibirsk Art Museum, Russia, 2016[citation needed]
Nangokusho, Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2013;[15] Tanto Tempo Gallery (Kobe, Japan), 2014;[16][17] Reclaim Photography Festival, Lighthouse Media Centre (Wolverhampton, England), 2018[citation needed]
Nangokusho (together with work by Yang Seung-Woo and Tomohisa Tobitsuka), In)(between record vol. 1, In)(between Art Gallery (Paris), 2013.[18][19]
Japanese Eyes, In)(between record vol. 12, In)(between Art Gallery (Paris), 2014. Group exhibition.[19][20]
Poet Island, Zen Foto Gallery (Roppongi Tokyo), 2015;[8][21] Gallery722 (Okayama, Japan), 2015; Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2015;[22] Reclaim Photography West Midlands (Birmingham, England), 2017[citation needed]
Nangokushō (南国頌) =Nangokusho: Ode to the Southern Lands of Japan. Tokyo: Sokyu-sha, 2013.OCLC840124636.
Chō no mita yume (蝶の見た夢) =Butterfly Had a Dream. Tokyo: Sokyu-sha, 2014.OCLC880594778.
Wombat No. 16. Paris: Wombat, 2015. Contains a print by Fujiwara, a portfolio byWilliam Klein, a print byUtagawa Hiroshige, and a "silkscreen print with Aesop complicity".[n 8]
Shijin no shima (詩人の島) =Poet Island. Tokyo: Sokyu-sha, 2015.ISBN9784904120477.
^Visual presentation of the bookButterfly Had a Dream by Josef Chladek;review of it by Jan-Frederik Rust;short interview by 3/3 of Fujiwara and the book's designer (Koichi Hara) about it.
^Review (in Spanish) of the bookPoet Island by Gabriela Cendoya;review of it by Christer Ek;review of it by Jan-Frederik Rust.
