Atsushi Fujiwara

is a Japanese photographer. He is the co-founder of and the main contributor to the Japanese photo magazine ''Asphalt''. His work has been exhibited both in Japan and internationally.

Life and career

Fujiwara was born in Okayama City in 1963. His family soon moved to Ōyamazaki (Kyoto), and moved again to Shiga when he was at primary school.Naoto Ohsumi, "On photography as a voyage, human life and death, and home", afterword to ''Semimaru''. He lived in Yasu (Shiga) until he was 26,故郷の記憶たどる 1年かけ向き合い撮影 県出身の藤原敦さん、大津できょうから /滋賀
''Mainichi Shinbun'', 6 October 2018. and considers himself a native of Shiga.

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. A year later, he started out as a photographer,Yasunobu Ichii (), "Fujiwara Atsushi ''Asphalt'' (''Asufaruto'')" (), ''Nippon Camera'', December 2012, pages 134–135. this unusually late start being helped by the photographers and Daidō Moriyama.

Together with the photographer Shin'ichirō Tōjinbara (), 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, 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. These guest photographers included Yang Seungwoo () and Takehiko Nakafuji ().List
of contributing photographers, ''Asphalt'' archive. ''Asphalt'' is in the holdings of several art museums outside Japan, by Akina (a photobook publisher) of Fujiwara about ''Asphalt''. and its content is available online.Archive
of the magazine ''Asphalt''.

''Nangokusho: Ode to the Southern Lands of Japan'' (2013) was the first of four photobooks by Fujiwara to be published by , each of these containing work in black and white. It borrows the title ''Nangokushō'' () from a collection of ''tanka'' 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 in Kagoshima. The book presents photographs of Kagoshima from 2009 and 2010.Description
(in Japanese) of the book ''Nangokusho'' by Shuntaro Kanekiyo
visual presentation
of it by Josef Chladek

of it by Adam Bell.

''Butterfly Had a Dream'' shows the family life in Miyako-jima and the work and single life in Tokyo of a professional ''kinbaku'' 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.Visual presentation
of the book ''Butterfly Had a Dream'' by Josef Chladek

of it by Jan-Frederik Rust
short interview
by 3/3 of Fujiwara and the book's designer (Koichi Hara) about it.

As a child, Fujiwara had visited Nagashima Aiseien, a leper sanatorium, whose general manager was an uncle of his. He returned there 35 years later, influenced by Kaijin Akashi, who had been incarcerated there and had died there, but whose poems continued to express joy despite his loss of sight and other physical decay. For his book ''Poet Island'' (2015), Fujiwara photographed the sanatorium and depicted mementoes of Akashi's. 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.Kōtarō Iizawa
Fujiwara Atsushi, ''Shijin no shima'' ()
Artscape, 15 April 2015.Review
(in Spanish) of the book ''Poet Island'' by Gabriela Cendoya
review
of it by Christer Ek

of it by Jan-Frederik Rust.

''Semimaru'' (2017) is named after that in turn is named after its main character. The book looks for traces of Semimaru on and elsewhere in what is now Shiga prefecture.Visual presentation
of the book ''Semimaru'' by Josef Chladek

of it by Jan-Frederik Rust.

Exhibitions

* ''Trace'', Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2009.
* ''Asphalt'' photo exhibition, Rencontres d'Arles (Arles, France), 2010 (with work by Kōji Onaka and Photographer Hal); Zen Foto Gallery (Beijing), 2011 (with work by Yang Seung-Woo and Muge); Tanto Tempo Gallery (Kobe, Japan), 2012
* ''Kagoshima'', Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2010.
* ''Poet's island'', Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2011.
* ''Butterfly had a dream'', Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2012; 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
* ''Nangokusho'', Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2013; Tanto Tempo Gallery (Kobe, Japan), 2014; Reclaim Photography Festival, Lighthouse Media Centre (Wolverhampton, England), 2018
* ''Nangokusho'' (together with work by Yang Seung-Woo and Tomohisa Tobitsuka), In)(between record vol. 1, In)(between Art Gallery (Paris), 2013.Atsushi Fujiwara
, In)(between Art Gallery.
* ''Japanese Eyes'', In)(between record vol. 12, In)(between Art Gallery (Paris), 2014. Group exhibition.
* ''Poet Island'', Zen Foto Gallery (Roppongi Tokyo), 2015; Gallery722 (Okayama, Japan), 2015; Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2015; Reclaim Photography West Midlands (Birmingham, England), 2017
* ''Semimaru'', Sokyu-sha Gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo), 2017; Gallery722 (Okayama, Japan), 2017.
* ''Un regard sur ses publications'' = ''A Look into His Publications'', In)(between record vol. 31, In)(between Art Gallery (Paris), 2017.
* ''Tukurohi'', Mii-dera (Ōtsu, Japan), 2018.
* ''Semimaru'', within ''Beauty in Imperfection'' (group show), Reclaim Photography Festival West Midlands (Birmingham England), 2020
* ''2200Miles'', Books and Modern, Tokyo, 2020Exhibition notice
for ''2200Miles'', Books and Modern. + Blue Sheep Gallery Tokyo, 2020
* ''2200Miles'', Gallery722(Okayama, Japan), 2020
* ''Butterfly Had a Dream'', Casa Da Caltura De Avintes, Portugal), 2021
* ''2200Miles'', ROSPHOTO(Saint Petersburg, Russia), 2024
* ''2200Miles'', Gallery NEGATIVE(Busan, South Korea), 2024
* ''Butterfly Had a Dream'', SPACE S(Busan, South Korea), 2024
* ''SAKURA RIVER'', ZEN FOTO GALLERY(Tokyo, Japan), 2024

Publications

* ''Asphalt'' (10 issues). Asphalt Publishing, 2008–2012.
* ''Nangokushō'' () = ''Nangokusho: Ode to the Southern Lands of Japan.'' Tokyo: Sokyu-sha, 2013. .
* ''Chō no mita yume'' () = ''Butterfly Had a Dream.'' Tokyo: Sokyu-sha, 2014. .
* ''Wombat No. 16.'' Paris: Wombat, 2015. Contains a print by Fujiwara, a portfolio by William Klein, a print by Utagawa Hiroshige, and a "silkscreen print with Aesop complicity".Publisher's description
of ''Wombat No. 16''.
* ''Shijin no shima'' () = ''Poet Island.'' Tokyo: Sokyu-sha, 2015. .
* ''Semimaru'' () = ''Semimaru.'' Tokyo: Sokyu-sha, 2017.
* ''2200Miles.'' Tokyo: Sokyu-sha, 2019.
* ''SAKURA RIVER'', ZEN FOTO GALLERY, 2024

Notes

References

External links

Fujiwara's website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fujiwara, Atsushi
1963 births
Living people
Japanese photographers
People from Shiga Prefecture