Press Release2017
The 33rd Higashikawa Awards
The Town of Photography
Culture Capital of Photography
Information

Higashikawa International Photography Festival Office
Mayor : Ichiro Matsuoka

HIGASHIKAWA, KAMIKAWA-GUN, HOKKAIDO**********************************************************************<Address>

HIGASHIKAWA PUBLIC

OFFICE

Organizers: Toshiyuki Yanome, Jumpei Shimogomi, Hiroko Yoshizato
1-16-1, Higashimachi, Higashikawa, Hokkaido 071-1492 Japan
TEL. +81 166 82 2111 / FAX. +81 166 82 4704
http://photo-town.jp/ E-mail: photo@town.higashikawa.lg.jp

The 33rd Higashikawa Award Winners◆The Overseas Photographer Award:

Anna Orłowska (Poland)

For her ‘Case study: invisibility’ Series (2012-2014) and other series.

◆The Domestic Photographer Award:

MOTOHASHI Seiichi

For his exhibition “Arika” [Sense of Place] (Izu Photo Museum,2016) and other photographic activities.

◆The New Photographer Award:

NOMURA Sakiko

For her photobook: “Mō hitotsu no kuroyami” [Another Black
Darkness] (Akio Nagasawa Publishing, 2016) and other activities as aphotographer.

◆The Special Photographer Award: OKADA Atsushi
For his ‘Yururitō no yaseiba’ [The Ephemeral Island, Yururitō]
series and photobook “1999” (Nagatomo K.K., 2015).

◆The Hidano Kazuuemon Award: KOSEKI Yoshiro
For his photobook “Kujūkurihama” (Shumpusha Publishing, 2004)
and his activities over a long period of time, recording social phenomena andlocal customs or scenery in his homeplace of Chiba prefecture.

Commentary on the Selection of the 33rd Higashikawa Awards
Osamu Ueno, jury member
The judging committee for the 33rd Town of Photography Higashikawa Awards
sat on February 21, 2017. This year saw 48 nominations for the Domestic PhotographerAward, 62 for the New Photographer Award, 22 for the Special Photographer Award, 26
for the Hidano Kazuuemon Award and 21 for the Overseas Photographer Award. Inorder to involve more people in making recommendations for the awards, we have been
gradually expanding the list of nominators, from 106 two years ago to 161 last year and
179 for this year. As is customary every year, the 8 judges came together in the morning
to carefully view the enormous quantity of photographs, portfolios, etc., then in theafternoon, we began the judging.

The Domestic Photographer Award went to MOTOHASHI Seiichi. His work
stands out for his depictions of the people in the street and the great detail he presents
through his work, from “Arika” [Sense of Place], which consists of carefully selected
works from 9 previous series of work—starting with early works, ‘Ofuyu’ and ‘Yoron’,which had never been exhibited, then moving on to his most famous series, ‘Tankō(Yama)’ [The Coal Mine], ‘Ueno Eki’ [Ueno Station], ‘Toba’ [Slaughterhouse], ‘Geinō

Tōzai’ [Performance East and West], ‘Circus’, ‘Chernobyl’, and finishing with his latest
series ‘Arayashiki’—to ‘Tsukiji uogashi hito to machi’ [Tsukiji Fish Market – A People’sTown] and ‘Ueno eki no makuai soshite seikan renrakusen’ [An Intermission at Ueno
Station and Seikan Ferry] series. As time passes, the significance of black-and-whitephotography grows and this makes his work all the more appropriate, as one of theconditions for this award is that ‘from the viewpoint of photographic history andphotographic expression, the works should remain meaningful in the future.’

There were six contenders for the New Photographer Award—ISHIKAWA
Ryūichi, KATAYAMA Mari, KIKUCHI Tomoko, NOMURA Sakiko, HAYASHI Noriko
and YOSHINO Erika, but finally it was presented to NOMURA Sakiko. Using theimages from her previous series, “Kuroyami” [Black Darkness] and others, she produced
an experimental work, “Mō hitotsu no kurayami” [Another Black Darkness] in which
she employed solarization in her work for the first time, printing the results using blackink on black paper to produce a photobook. Her ‘Gun’ series is a result of her spending 3
days living with 6 male models. Ms. Nomura has received attention for her uniqueexpressions of the physical body, resulting in her also being nominated for the Domestic
Photographer Award, but due to the experimental and sensational nature of her work it
was decided that the New Photographer Award was more appropriate.

The Special Photographer Award went to OKADA Atsushi, who was born in
Wakkanai City and brought up in Sapporo City, both of which are in Hokkaido. Using
photographs he had taken while he was a university student of friends, horses andviews of the outskirts of Sapporo etc., he compiled a photobook entitled “1999”,
employing the latest digital technology and a contemporary sensibility. From 2011 hephotographed feral horses and scenery on the deserted island of Yururitō in Nemuro(Hokkaido) to produce the series ‘Yururitō no yaseiba’ [The Ephemeral Island, Yururitō].
This work goes beyond the documentary to shine a light on the state of nature there, anelement that is also present in his other series. The fact that his work features his home
prefecture of Hokkaido, serves to enrichen the world created within them.

The Hidano Kazuuemon Award, which is aimed at ‘people who continue tophotograph local people, nature or culture over a long period of time and who arerecognized as contributing to the area’, was presented to KOSEKI Yoshiro. Born in what
was Sakae village (now Sōsa City) in Chiba Prefecture, he worked as an apprentice in a
bicycle shop for 6 years before opening a camera shop in 1967, thereafter combining his
work in the store with photography. He photographed the endless sand dunes and harshworking conditions of the ‘oppeshi’ fisherwomen and ‘funagata’ fishermen, to produce“Kujūkurihama” and numerous other documentary photobooks, including: “Narita

Kokusai Kūkō” [Narita International Airport], “Kokutetsu—Jōkikikanku no kiroku”[National Railways—A Record of the Steam Lines], “Kujira kaitai” [Whale Processing],
etc., and continues to create works that could only be achieved by a local photographer.

The Overseas Photographer Award went to Anna Orłowska from the target
country of Poland. Having experienced a major political upheaval and possessing a longcinematic tradition, the works from Poland are extremely varied, exhibiting great depth
and scope and the final choice was made based on a survey by one of the judges,
KUSUMOTO Aki. Orłowska is representative of the young photographers there, herphotographs stir the viewers’ imaginations, winning her international acclaim.
Recently she has developed the theme of things that cannot be seen in which shequestions the visibility of photographs.

The selection this year was not settled simply by unanimous or majority vote,instead, the judges sat at a round table, discussing the merits of each work and theprovisions of the awards, exchanging a variety of views and holding deliberations until
a winner was arrived at for each award. Even though there may be differences of
opinion between the judging committee’s members, it is customary to discuss the matter
until an agreement can be reached. This year, saw the replacement of 3 members of thecommittee who retired last year but despite the new blood, the traditional style ofjudging was retained. As a result, the judging committee was proud to have been able toselect outstanding artists befitting the ‘capital of photographic culture’.

In this way, it can be said that one of the characteristics of the Higashikawa
town is that, despite changes may occur over time, it remains true to its traditions.
More than 30 years have passed since Higashikawa declared itself to be a ‘Town of
Photography’ in 1985 and it is through the continual endeavors of the local community,
one step at a time, with the support of large numbers of people throughout the world
who share our objectives, that it has become what it is today. Higashikawa town isproud of its wonderful environment with ‘delicious water’, ‘clean air’ and ‘fertile land’,
but it had a vision of becoming ‘a small town where people can come into contact withphotographs from around the world, a town where people from around the world canmix, a town that would overflow with smiles from around the world,’ and it possesses
the charm to be able to realize this dream. We hope that the marvelous artists who won
this year’s awards will join with the people of Higashikawa town to take the next step
forward.

The Jury Committee of the 33rd Higashikawa Awards
ASABA Katsumi <Art Director>------------------------24th –UENO Osamu <Photo Critic>---------------------------31st–
KITANO Ken <Photographer>---------------------------33rd–
KUSUMOTO Aki <Photo Critic, Curator>-------------25th –NAKAMURA Ikuo <Photographer> --------------------33rd –NIWA Harumi <Curator, Photo Critic>-------------33rd –HIRANO Keiichiro <Novelist>---------------------------24th –MITSUDA Yuri <Art Critic>-------------------------------27th –The Overseas Photographer Award
Anna Orłowska
Lives in Warsaw, Poland

photo: Mikołaj Syguda

Born in Opole, located in the south-west part of Poland in 1986.
Graduated from the Photography Department of the National Film School in Łódź in2011. Completed an undergraduate degree at the Institute of Creative Photography in
the Czech Republic in 2013.
In 2010, her work was scheduled for“ReGeneration2: Tomorrow’s

Photographers Today”, an exhibition showcasing the works of 80 up and coming young
photographers from 30 different countries. The exhibition toured the world starting in
the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Awarded a Photo Global award of the International Festival of Fashion andPhotography in Hyeres, France, receiving one-year scholarship at the School of Visual
Arts in New York.
Her graduation project ‘Leakage’ (2011) consists of images both tranquil andsurreal, such as a baby laid among tree branches and a group portrait of with a zombie
in the background receiving increased recognition such as being featured in the
Rencontres d’ Arles 2015.
Her sequence of photographs in ‘Case study: invisibility’ (2012-2014) feature avariety of scenes invoking invisible presences, such as stills photography from the movie“The Invisible Man”, a secluded mental institution on the outskirts of town, and a pink
unicorn.
In her works ‘Effortless exercise’ (2016-), she uses paraffin on photographs to
produce effects which draw out underlying images according to the temperature.
She searches for hidden meaning, subconscious, fear, fantasy in the borders
between reality and illusion with invisible presence in everyday life as a theme.

The Domestic Photographer Award
MOTOHASHI Seiichi
Lives in Tokyo

Born in Higashi-Nakano, Tokyo in 1940. Graduated from Jiyu Gakuen
College in 1963 and Tokyo College of Photography in 1965. Started taking photos ofthe miners living conditions in Kyushu and Hokkaido over several years as a thesis
project and won The 5th Taiyo Prize in 1968 with ‘Tankō (Yama)’ [The Coal Mine]
series.
His works often feature the powerful and rich ways of life of ordinary
people, notably ‘Geinō Tōzai’ [Performance East and West] (1972-) records
disappearing

publicperformances

such

as

chindon’ya

streetmusicians,

vaudevillians, popular theaters, ‘Ueno Eki’ [Ueno Station] (1980-) captures thevarious people arriving from Northern Japan using Ueno Station in its last days as
a gateway, and ‘Toba’ [Slaughterhouse] (1986-) photographs people working in new
and old slaughterhouses in Matsubara city, Osaka.
Since 1991, he has repeatedly recorded the lives of people in Belarus
contaminated by the Chernobyl power plant disaster and won the Society of
Photography Award for ‘Infinite Embrace’ in 1995. Won The 17th Domon Ken
Award for “Nadya’s Village” in 1998, also filming “Nadya’s Village” (1997) and“Alexei and the Spring” (2002).
Has released a documentary film “Take Your Time - Arayashiki”
showcasing people from various background coming together with farming in ‘Maki
Cooperative School’, a small commune in Otari village, Nagano in 2015.
Has held many solo exhibitions, notably, “Nadezhda - Hope” (The Tokyo
Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 2002) and “Sense of Place” (IZU PHOTO
MUSEUM, 2016).

The New Photographer AwardNOMURA Sakiko
Lives in Tokyo

Born in Shimonoseki City, Yamaguchi in 1967. Graduated from the
Department of Photography, Kyushu Sangyo University in 1990. Has been mentored by
Araki Nobuyoshi since 1991. Has held a prolific number of solo and group exhibitions
concentrated in Tokyo as well as Europe and Asia since the “Hari no nai Tokei” [A clock
without hands] (egg gallery, 1993).
Her first photography book “Hadaka no Jikan” [Time for naked] (Heibonsha
Limited, Publishers, 1997) captures dense time and space through black and white
images of a naked man lying on the bed with dim light coming from the darkness.
Her first colored photography book “Yakan hiko” [Night Flight] (Little More Co., Ltd.,
2008) features nighttime landscapes, never published in her photo books, captured over
7 years using a tiny spy camera, and also images of naked men in wet atmosphere.
Her work “NUDE/ A ROOM / FLOWERS” (MATCH and Company Co. Ltd.,
2012) was awarded the Sagamihara Newcomer Photographer Award. It contains morethan 20 years of works and weaves together disparate images starting with the funeral
portrait of her friend and longtime model, nudes, portraits, landscapes, children, andflowers heavily foreshadowing life and death hidden in an intimate and tranquil world.
In 2016, the exhibition “Gun” [Wild Geese] (BA-TSU ART GALLERY) was
held featuring works created through spending 3 intense days with 6 male models, thesame year, “Mō hitotsu no kuroyami” [Another Black Darkness] (Akio Nagasawa
Publishing), an experimental work solarizing the images from her previous book
“Kuroyami” [Black Darkness] (2008) and other series, was published.
She continues to showcase deep, often unseen, emotions quivering insidethrough naked bodies appearing in the darkness and through the outer world.

The Special Photographer AwardOKADA Atsushi
Lives in Tokyo. Born in Wakkanai, Hokkaido

Born in Wakkanai city, Hokkaido in 1979 and raised in Sapporo city.
Graduated from Osaka University of Art, Photography Department in 2003. Completed
a PhD in arts at Tokyo Polytechnic University in 2008.
In 2003, he published “Platibe” and “Cord” (Mado-sha Publishing Co., Ltd.,
2003) focusing on ‘living’. Won 33th Kimura Ihei Award for his work “I am” (Akaaka Art
Publishing Inc., 2017) which features images of 50 young people who reexamine their
way of existance. He has published a number of books including “ataraxia” (Seigensha
Art Publishing Inc., 2010) and “The WORLD” (Akaaka Art Publishing Inc., 2012) inwhich he shows the sublime beauty hidden in the world, also “MOTHER” (Hakurosha,2014) where he captures the unrestrained instant of birth.
His book “1999”(NAGATOMO Co, Ltd., 2015) blends together works from both
his student days in his homeland Hokkaido reflecting emotional landscape and thelatest digital techniques and current sensibilities.
Since 2011, commissioned by Nemuro city, Hokkaido, he has photographed
the wild horses on the deserted Yururitō island, off the Nemuro Peninsula. Yururitō
island was once known as ‘horses paradise’. In the 1950s, horses were imported here
to help with the labor of collecting kelp. In 1971, the last fisherman left the island, but
the descendants of the horses still live there. The horse’s numbers are dwindling andthey are destined to disappear. So he is trying to preserve evidence of an important
chapter in Hokkaido’s history and culture. He received The Hokkaido Cultural
Development Incentive Award in 2014.

The Hidano Kazuuemon AwardKOSEKI Yoshiro
Lives in Chiba

Born in Sakae village, Sousa county, Chiba (now Sousa city). Graduated fromthe junior high school under the new education system. While being apprenticed in a
bicycle shop, he self-taught himself photography. Won a number of magazine
photography competitions. In 1962, his photos of a fisherwoman ‘Oppeshi warming

themselves’ was published in “Camera Mainichi”, winning the photo of the year. Opened
his photography shop in Yokoshiba town, Chiba in 1967 and balances taking his photos
with running his business.
In 1973, he won a Newcomer’s Award of the Photographic Society of Japan for“Kujukuri hama” (mokujisha, 1972) for his long-term works where he proactively took
photos of hardy fisherwomen called ‘Oppeshi’ and fishermen called ‘Funagata’ who livewith the sea as the Oppeshi help to bring fish and boats from the sea which cannot
reach the town since its beach is wide and shallow without a fishing boat.
His works include, “Narita International Airport” (mokujisha, 1982), areportage document of the time leading up to the opening of the airport including local
protests, “Kujukuri ujo” (1993), photographs paired with his essays seeking out thefailing nature of Kujukurihama beach and sea life, “Kokutetsu—Jōkikikanku no

kiroku” [National Railways—A Record of the Steam Lines]” (Archives Publishing, 2007),
emphasizing the train engineers who maintained the locomotives of the time in Sakura
garage National Railways, Chiba in the early 1960s, “Kujira kaitai” [Whale Processing](Shumpusha Publishing, 2011), the Japanese whale catching culture in Chiba,
Wakayama and Miyagi at its crossroad. “Kujukurihama” (Shumpusha Publishing,2004) was also re-released with newly taken photographs.
Until now, he has taken photos of the place he was born and raised,showcasing the everyday lives and works of people, creating an important document
which challenges modern society and culture.

Higashikawa International Photography Festival
Photo Fiesta 2017

Award Winners’ Exhibition
Date: 29 July (Sat.) – 30 August (Wed.), 2017
Venue: Higashikawa Bunka Gallery
Time: 10:00 - 17:30
Admission: ¥200 ( ¥100 for residents )Organize: The Town of Photography: Higashikawa
Address: 1-19-8 Higashi-machi, Higashikawa-cho, Kamikawa-gun, 071-1423 Hokkaido
Tel: (+81)-(0)166-82-4700 Fax: (+81)-(0)166-82-4704

Artists:
Anna Orłowska(The Overseas Photographer Award)

MOTOHASHI Seiichi(The Domestic Photographer Award)

NOMURA Sakiko(The New Photographer Award)

OKADA Atsushi(The Special Photographer Award)

KOSEKI Yoshiro(The Hidano Kazuuemon Award)

Event Schedule:
29 July (Sat.)

14:00-14:30 Award Ceremony
15:30-17:00 Opening Reception

30 July (Sun.)

13:00-17:30 Panel Discussion
Panelists: award winners, judges and guests

Higashikawa Awards[Purpose]With the idea of contributing to and fostering photographic culture as well as raising
the cultural consciousness of Higashikawa residents, starting this year, 1985, we will
annually be awarding prizes accompanied by monetary gifts to the photographer for his/ her works.

[Awards]
The Overseas Photographer Award*1,000,000 yen to a overseas photographer
The Domestic Photographer Award*1,000,000 yen to a Japanese photographer
The New Photographer Award*500,000 yen to a Japanese photographer
The Special Photographer Award*500,000 yen to a photographer from Hokkaido
The Hidano Kazuuemon Award*500,000 yen to a photographer who contributed to society through photography[Conditions]
The Overseas Photographer Award is presented to a photographer in a specificcountry or region chosen each year. He / She must be either living or born in thatcountry or region.
The Domestic and the New Photographer Awards are presented to photographers
whose work has been taken within the past three years that has significance either inthe history of photography or as some unique expression of the art of photography.
The Special Photographer Award is presented to a photographer living or born in
Hokkaido or whose theme and / or object concerns this island.
The Hidano Kazuuemon Award is presented to a photographer in acknowledgement of
his longtime contributions in taking photographs of local people, nature and culture.
(The prize is open to both professional and amateur photographers.)
Of all the prizes, no specific restrictions are applied concerning the year it was taken
for the Overseas Prize, the Special Prize and the Hidano Kazuuemon Prize.

[Selection]
The works selected by nominators charged by the executive committee are judged by the
Jury Committee of the Higashikawa Award. The awards ceremony is held each year
during the period of the Photo Fiesta in Higashikawa Town and is accompanied bycommemorative symposiums and other events.

[Other Stipulations]
The monetary gift presented with the Higashikawa Awards is meant to purchase theoriginal prints of the awarded photographs. Each awardee is requested to voluntarily
submit original print(s) of his / her choice from among the awarded works to the residentsof Higashikawa town.
The residents of the town shall be responsible for storing the photographs with care andfor exhibiting them to visitors to Higashikawa, the Town of Photography.
These awarded photographs are exhibited at the Higashikawa Photography Museum inorder to contribute to promoting a friendship and cultural development of the Town ofHigashikawa.
We may present other awards to the photographs of outstanding works in order tocontribute to photographic culture as well as to development of the Higashikawa Awards.
For this reason, awards from other committees and sponsors are negotiable.

The Town of Photography
Culture Capital of Photography: Higashikawa
Higashikawa Town is located in central Hokkaido, northernmost of Japan, and is apart of Japan's largest national park "Daisetsuzan National Park" with Higashikawa's
eastern part forming a large-scale forest. Blessed with natural beauty, lots of places in
Higashikawa have been the subjects of many photographs.
Higashikawa, firstly cultivated by a group of settlers in 1895, has a shorter history
compared to that of photography invented in 1839. Higashikawa declared the “Town of
Photography” in 1985 aiming to create a town of “being a good subject to be
photographed” co-existing with beautiful nature inhabited by many species of animals
and plants.
Higashikawa established the Higashikawa Awards in the same year and started theannual summer festival of photography with the idea of contributing to and fostering
photographic culture as well as raising the cultural consciousness of Higashikawa
residents. With a history of more than a quarter of a century, it has been the nation’s
prestigious photography awards and the longest-running photography festival.
Higashikawa awards can also be noted in that it has rewarded overseas outstanding
photographers such as Joel Sternfeld, Lewis Baltz and Jan Saudek as well as domestic
photographers and introduced them to Japan. Through this, we meet people fromabroad and exchange with them. By doing so, we believe we can entrust prayer forpeace and our dreams to the future generation.
Since the declaration of the Town of Photography, Higashikawa has been a platform of
meeting people, photography culture and nature over the last 30 years. Celebrating 120
years of resource development of the land, we declared the Culture Capital of
Photography in May 2014, keeping in mind our motto “Take a picture, Save the picture,
Share it with others” and with the determination to link photography and people acrossthe world.