Beginnings: 1975

First Edition, 2018. 58 pages.Book measures 9 x 9 inches. Photo illustrated paper-covered boards. No dust jacket as issued. Signed by Miyako on the front endpaper. 

“Beginnings: 1975” is a collection of 45 of Miyako Ishiuchi’s earliest photographs. Ishiuchi discovered the images by chance while preparing a solo exhibition at the Yokohama Museum of Art. 

The photos were taken from within Ishiuchi’s daily life, and developed in a makeshift darkroom in her parents’ house. The black & white photos “provoke no nostalgia, no sentimental memories; they appear instead as mysterious proof of the depth of the decades between that time and my life today,” writes Ishiuchi in her afterword (presented in Japanese and English), adding: “Although I still find them imperfect, I recognize I already had the vision that led me to create ‘Yokosuka Story,’ ‘Apartment,’ and ‘Endless Nights.'"