Ishiuchi Miyako

Miyako Ishiuchi (b. 1947) is one of Japan's leading women photographers. Her work is internationally acclaimed, and she has received the first Hasselblad Foundation International Award to be given to an Asian woman. In series about cities with U.S. military bases, red-light districts, visible scars, or the belongings of atomic bomb victims, Ishiuchi's photography captures the trauma of postwar Japan. Beginning with the three photobooks Apartment (1978), Yokosuka Story (1979), and Endless Night (1981), all taken in Ishiuchi's hometown of Yokosuka, the focus of her work shifted to the human body in series such as 1・9・4・7 (1990) and Scars (2005), and later to personal belongings in Mother's (2002), Hiroshima (2008), and Frida (2013). Whether directed at herself or other women, Ishiuchi's gaze evokes empathy and transcends the boundaries of culture and time to address universal issues.

*This text was contributed by Mitsuhiro Wakayama.
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