Yoshiichi Hara: TOKOYO NO MUSHI (Signed)

The title "Insects of the Eternal World" comes from a phrase that appears in Volume 24 of the "Nihon Shoki," and the exhibition includes a series of works created based on the images of immortality and eternity described there.

This book uses insects, extremely small yet resilient living organisms, as its main motif, and quietly delves into universal themes such as human existence, life and death, and the cycle of time.

Rather than meticulously recording his subjects, Hara Yoshiichi is a photographer who has continued to question his own inner self and the state of existence through the act of photography itself. In this work, too, the monochrome photographs and illustrations bring to light layers of sensation and thought that exist before words, as if superimposing the instinctive life activities of insects with his own life.

[Title] Insects of the Everworld
[Publisher] Sokyusha
[Publication date] March 25, 2013 (first edition) Limited to 400 copies
[Number of pages] 84 pages
[Size] Approx.
[Format] Hardcover
[Language] Japanese
[Title Reading] Tokoyonomushi
[Author/Editor, etc.] Hara Yoshiichi/Author,
[Printing] San-M Color/Printing, Michitaka Ota/Editor and Publisher, Katsuya Kato/Design
[ISBN] None
[Condition] Used, signed on the front page, [5] average (slight stain on back cover)
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Yoshiichi Hara (1948-2020)

Born in Tokyo in 1948.
Dropped out of Chiyoda Photography College.
He began producing photographs in the 1970s and held his first solo exhibition, "Tohoku Afterimages," in 1973. In 1978, he self-published the photo book "Wind-Pouring Flowers" through his own publishing company, Derusha.

He attracted attention with his works that focused on strip club dancers and women working in the sex industry, and won the 17th Juntaiyo Award for My Gypsy Rose (1980), a work that combined photographs and text.
He published a collection of portraits taken with a 4x5 large format camera, "Ladies' Record" (1984), and a comprehensive work, "Mandala Encyclopedia" (1988).
Since the 2000s, he has changed his style, producing intense snapshots that float on the border between dream and reality, such as "Darkness of the Present," "While There is Light," and "Insects of the Everlasting World," which have been highly praised.
In 2012, he received the 24th Photography Society Award, and in 2015, he received the Photographic Society of Japan Artist Award.
Passed away in 2020 at the age of 72.

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