Press Release2015
The 31st 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: Akihito Kubota, Kita Masahito
1-16-1, Higashimachi, Higashikawa, Hokkaido 071-1492 Japan
TEL. +81 166 82 2111 / FAX. +81 166 82 4704

http://photo-town.jp/

The 31st Higashikawa Award Winners◆The Overseas Photographer Award: Anne Noble (New Zealand)
For photographic achievements, including the photobook The Last

Road（Clouds, 2014）◆The Domestic Photographer Award:

Tokihiro Sato

For the exhibition “Sato Tokihiro: Presence or Absence” (Tokyo
Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 2014) and his accomplishments as aphotographer◆The New Photographer Award:

Maiko Haruki

For the exhibition “A certain composition of eyes” (Taro Nasu, 2014)and her photographic achievements◆The Special Photographer Award: Kazutoshi Yoshimura
For the photobook, CEMENT (Nostro Bosco, 2010)◆The Hidano Kazuemon Award:

Kikujiro Fukushima

For long-term achievement in photographing problematic aspects ofpostwar Japanese, including images of his hometown in Seto Inland Sea andsurvivors of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.

Commentary on the Selection of the 31st Higashikawa Photography Awards
Michiko Kasahara, jury member

Commentary on the Selection of the 31st Higashikawa Photography Awards
Michiko Kasahara, jury member

The judging of the 31st Higashikawa Photography Awards took place at the
Kuwasawa Design School on February 16, 2015. A total of 106 photographers had been
nominated: 30 for the Domestic Photographer Award, 34 for the New PhotographerAward, 11 for the Special Photographer Award, 18 for the Hidano Kazuuemon Award,
and 13 for the Overseas Photographer Award. The jurors gathered at 10:00 AM andcarefully looked through the huge amount of work by the nominated artists. The
judging began at 1:30 PM after a lunch break. Jury member Hiroshi Yamazaki wassuddenly taken ill and could not be present. Kazuyoshi Nomachi was on an overseas
trip and could not attend, but he had already given his recommendations to thebusiness office.

The Domestic Photographer Award was given to Tokihiro Sato. Before
starting deliberations on the Domestic Photographer Award, we discussed whether or
not it would be appropriate to consider Mr. Sato as a candidate for the award because of
his previous involvement with the Higashikawa Photographer Awards. Even though wethought that some criticism could be expected, it was decided that he should be included
because of the extent of his achievements, and in the judging that followed he wasunanimously selected by the jury to receive the award. The exhibition, “Presence orAbsence,” at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography was a magnificent
presentation of Sato’s achievements that examined the structure of the camera and theprinciples of photography through the themes of light, the body, time, and space.

Opinion was divided over the New Photographer Award. Since it is applied to
the work of young to mid-career photographers, there are many qualified candidates tochoose from every year. The candidates who remained after a number of votes anddiscussions were Maiko Haruki, Shintaro Sato, Noriko Hayashi, and Toshiya

Murakoshi. By a small margin, the vote went to Haruki Maiko as recipient of the New
Photographer Award. She has been working steadily for 15 years, has been invited toparticipate in group exhibitions in Japan and other countries and enjoys a growing
reputation. The black void filling the space of her new work, A certain composition ofeyes, can be seen as representing the condition of today’s Japan.

Kazutoshi Yoshimura received the Special Photographer Award, which is
given to a photographer associated with Hokkaido. He has energetically taken
landscape photographs both in Japan and overseas. On this occasion, he was recognized
for CEMENT, a photobook featuring a cement plant in Hokuto, Hokkaido. A
large-format camera was used for both detailed close-ups and distant views in thesecolor photographs. This book asks the viewer to think about the presence and meaningof the cement plant and at the same time reveals and celebrates the beauty found in its
forms.

The Hidano Kazuuemon Award is presented to a photographer who has madea special contribution to a particular region. This year it was awarded to Kikujiro
Fukushima, who has gained attention in recent years for the documentary film, Japan
Lies, which covers the last half of his life. He is a remarkable journalistic photographer
who has always taken the side of the weakest members of society. He has photographed
the survivors of Hiroshima for many years and documented other negative aspects of
the history of the region known as Japan, including the Sanrizuka struggle (the protest
against construction of Narita Airport), pollution, and nuclear power plants.

This year, the Overseas Photographer Award was presented to a photographer
from New Zealand. With the cooperation of the Auckland Festival of Photography, jury
member Aki Kusumoto conducted research in Auckland and Wellington. 13 artists were
nominated, all of them important photographers in New Zealand. From thesecandidates, Anne Noble was chosen by an overwhelming majority. She is known for hercompelling series of images of her daughter’s mouth and photographs on the theme of
Antarctica. She deals with a variety of issues faced by contemporary people such as
sexuality, the relationship between man and nature, and the problem of representation
through vivid images often spiced with humor.

The Overseas Photographer Award
Anne Noble
Lives in Wellington, New ZealandAnne Noble is Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts at Massey University,
Wellington and one of New Zealand’s most respected contemporary photographers. In
2009 she received an Arts Foundation Laureate Award in recognition of her contribution
to the visual arts in New Zealand. She has also received an ONZM for services tophotography in New Zealand and was a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, toundertake a residency at Colombia College, Chicago in 2014. Noble has also worked as a
curator, representing Australia and New Zealand as Oceania curator for the Musee duquai Branly Photoquai Biennale in 2009 / 2011 / 2013. She is sought internationally, as
an advisor on creative arts research, as a photography teacher as a keynote speaker andas a judge of international photography awards.
Antarctica has been a major focus of her work over the last decade resulting
in three photographic book and exhibition projects, Ice Blink, 2011 (Clouds) The Last

Road, 2014, and Whiteout / Whitenoise (forthcoming), through which she explores new
ways to see and imagine a place that most people only encounter second-hand throughthe photographic image. Noble’s Antarctic projects have been exhibited widely
nationally and internationally.
More recently Noble has turned her attention to the decline of the honeybee
and global threats to complex natural systems. Her project Song Sting Swarm isconcerned with the symbiotic relationship between bees and humans and is premised on
close creative collaborations with scientists, with professional apiarists and withmembers of amateur beekeeping communities.

The Domestic Photographer Award
Tokihiro Sato
Lives in Saitama

Born in 1957 in Sakata, Yamagata prefecture. Received an MFA in sculpture
from the Tokyo University of the Arts. Won the New Photographer Award of the 6th
Higashikawa Photography Awards in 1990. Spent time in France after receiving theGrand Prix of the Art Scope Daimler Japan art-in-residence program in 1993. Lived inEngland on an overseas study grant from the Agency for Cultural Affairs. In addition toholding many exhibitions in Japan, has earned an excellent reputation and participatedin a number of exhibitions overseas, including the “9th Asian Art Biennale, Bangladesh”
in 1999 and a solo show at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2005. Received the Prize of the
Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts for “Sato Tokihiro: Presence or Absence” at
the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in 2014. Presently serving as professor
in the Department of Intermedia Art at the Tokyo University of the Arts.
One of Sato’s major works is his Photo-Respiration series, in which hepersonally enters the landscape he is photographing and produces traces of light with apenlight and sunlight reflected from a hand mirror. These points of light appear in the
final photograph. In Gleaning lights, he created 360-degree panorama photographs withmultiple pinhole cameras that he made by himself. And in the Wandering Camera
series, he used a camera obscura that could be moved from place to place, and people
were able to enter the chamber of the camera. These experimental projects reexamined
the possibilities of primitive optical properties of the camera for contemporary times.
Focusing on the apparatuses of photography, he has created photographic works of art
that question the inherent nature and universality of presence and absence with thethemes of light, time, space, and the body.

The New Photographer Award
Maiko Haruki
Lives in Tokyo

Born in Ibaraki prefecture in 1974. Attended Goldsmith’s College, Universityof London from 1995 to 1996 as an exchange student while enrolled in the Literature
Department of Tamagawa University. Graduated in art from Tamagawa University in
1997. Major exhibitions include “Roppongi Crossing 2007: Future Beats in JapaneseContemporary Art” (Mori Art Museum, 2007), “Contemporary Japanese Photography,
vol. 10 – elan photographic” (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 2011),
Azamino Photo Annual: Boundaries of Photography” (Yokohama Civic Gallery Azamino,2014), and “A certain composition of eyes” (Taro Nasu, 2014). Her works have beencollected by the Mori Art Museum, the Takamatsu City Museum of Art, and Dazaifu
Tenmangu Shrine.
Because of extreme underexposure, many of Haruki’s photographs have large
areas of black juxtaposed with small areas of dazzling light that break out of thedarkness, as exemplified in the book “●○” (Daiwa Radiator Factory Co., Ltd., 2005).
She has attracted attention for experimental and sophisticated expression. possibility inportraiture (1223 Contemporary Paintings, 2011), is a work that questions the problemof time as well as the issue of boundaries by including moving people along withbuildings as important parts of the photograph. An animal that has been mounted for
display is the subject of A certain composition of eyes. The animal is photographed frommany different angles, breaking down the image and reconstructing multiple gazes on
the same plane. In contemplating the act of seeing, she strips extraneous elements awayfrom photographic expression, encouraging viewers to ponder the two basic elements oftime and space.

The Special Photographer Award
Kazutoshi Yoshimura
Lives in Tokyo

Born in Matsumoto, Nagano prefecture in 1967. Graduated from Nagano
Prefectural Tagawa High School and worked for a printing company in Tokyo. Afterretiring, got his start in photography during a year in Canada. While living in Tokyo,
traveled throughout Japan and the world, actively taking photographs. Spends long
periods of time carefully researching selected themes. In addition to publishing
photobooks, is recently doing a great deal of writing. Has expanded his expressive
activities by writing magazine articles and publishing collections of essays. Received a
Canadian Media Arts Prize in 2003 and the Newcomer’s Prize of the Photographic
Society of Japan in 2007.
Beginning with a book of photos of Prince Edward Island on the northeastern
coast of Canada, has published more than 30 photobooks. Blue Moment (Shogakkan,2007) was a collection of views of blue sky taken in the few minutes before dawn andafter sunset in different parts of the world during a twenty year period. Yoshimura’s
enchanting, visionary photographs have a broad appeal. Returned to Japaneselandscapes in a number of photobooks including Sense of Japan (Nostro Bosco, 2009),

Shinshu (Shinano Mainichi Shimbunsha, 2011), and Sekisetsu (Maruzen Shuppan,
2013). His photobook CEMENT (Nostro Bosco, 2010) presents images of a cement plantin Hokuto, Hokkaido with a very matter-of-fact gaze, highlighting the reality of big
industry and revealing the beauty of its details.

The Hidano Kazuuemon Award
Kikujiro Fukushima
Lives in Yanai, Yamaguchi

Photo by Keiko Nasu

Born in Kudamatsu, Yamaguchi prefecture in 1921, the fourth son of a local
fishing boss. A private second class in the Japanese army at the end of the war in 1945.
From 1946 on, operated a watch and clock store in his hometown and beganphotographing survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bomb and scenes from remote islandsin the Seto Inland Sea. Pika Don: A Record of Atomic Bomb Survivors is his
photographic documentation of the struggles and suffering of a family of Hiroshima
survivors over a ten-year period. Received the Special Prize from the Japan Photo
Critics Association in 1960.
Fukushima moved to Tokyo in 1961 where he photographed subjects thatreflected the times: student protests, the Self Defense Forces, the weapons industry, theSanrizuka struggle, pollution, and young people’s lifestyles. His photographs were
published frequently in magazines and other media. In 1982, because of opposition to
the state and its authority, began living a self-sufficient life on an uninhabited island in
the Seto Inland Sea. Left the island because of illness and later published War Begins(Shakai Hyoronsha, 1987) and Story of a Remote Island in the Seto Inland Sea (Shakai
Hyoronsha, 1989). When the Showa emperor died in 1989, Fukushima started a mobile
photography exhibition with photographic panels he had constructed, highlighting
Japan’s war responsibility and postwar conditions. He still loans out these panels.
In recent years, Fukushima is gaining recognition as a witness to history. He
has been writing his Unphotographed Postwar series since 2003. A documentary film,

Japan Lies: The Photojournalism of Kikujiro Fukushima, Age 90 was released in 2012,
and the publishing of Will and Testament (Days Japan, 2013) followed soon after.

Higashikawa International Photography Festival
Photo Fiesta 2015

Award Winners’ Exhibition
Date: 8 August (Sat.) – 2 September (Wed.), 2015
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:
Anne Noble(The Overseas Photographer Award)

Tokihiro Sato

(The Domestic Photographer Award)

Maiko Haruki(The New Photographer Award)

Kazutoshi Yoshimura
Kikujiro Fukushima(The Special Photographer Award)(The Hidano Kazuuemon Award)

Event Schedule:
8 August (Sat.)

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

9 August (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 Jury Committee of the 31st Higashikawa Awards
Katsumi ASABA <Art Director>-------------------------24th –Michiko KASAHARA <Photo Critic>-------------------23rd –Aki KUSUMOTO <Photo Critic, Curator>-----------25th –Osamu Ueno <Photo Critic>------------------------------31st–
Kazuyoshi NOMACHI <Photographer> --------------23rd –Keiichiro HIRANO <Novelist>---------------------------24th –Yuri MITSUDA<Art Critic>------------------------------27th –Hiroshi YAMAZAKI <Photographer>------------------25th –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.