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  ©Tokuko Ushioda

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  ©Tokuko Ushioda

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  ©Tokuko Ushioda

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  ©Tokuko Ushioda

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  ©Tokuko Ushioda

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  ©Tokuko Ushioda

We will be open on Sunday, November 9, for participation in Art Week Tokyo..

We’re pleased to announce that “Tokuko Ushioda: Bibliotheca Tamazato” exhibition has been extended through Friday, November 14.

PGI is delighted to present Bibliotheca Tamazato—Inside Kagoshima University Library’s Rare Books Collection, its third solo exhibition of works by Japanese photographer Tokuko Ushioda.

        Tokuko Ushioda enrolled at Kuwasawa Design School in 1960, where she studied under Yasuhiro Ishimoto and Kiyoji Otsuji. After her graduation in 1963, she taught at her alma mater and at Tokyo Zokei University, and from 1975 she began to work as a photographer. As seen in her representative series Ice Box, in her photography Ushioda quietly traces time and human presence through everyday objects.

        This exhibition presents the latest work in Ushioda’s long-running Bibliotheca series, which she began more than twenty years ago. Earlier works in the series – Images Nostalgiques De L’Éditeur – Misuzu, My Teacher’s Atelier, Bibliotheca – Views of the Books, and Before Renovation, Kanagawa Prefectural Library, Mayekawa Kunio Library Annex – have been presented in numerous exhibitions and photobooks and capture the beauty and deep allure of books and the environments in which they are kept.

        Ushioda originally began her Bibliotheca when she was struck by the beauty of a single book and felt compelled to photograph it as an object. Since then, she has visited public and university libraries, private collections, and even the studio of her teacher Kiyoji Otsuji to capture the presence of books as well as the memories of space and time that they hold.

        This work, the fifth in the series, was photographed over a period of three years beginning in 2019. Its subject is the Tamazato Collection and several other books held in the Rare Books section of Kagoshima University Library. The Tamazato Collection consists of approximately 18,900 volumes, mainly historical materials and works in Japanese and Chinese, handed down within the Tamazato branch of the Shimazu family, a clan of daimyo that ruled over the southern Kyushu region for about 700 years, from the Kamakura period through the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Documents passed down within the family are today housed in four different locations across Japan, with the Tamazato Collection at Kagoshima University regarded as a collection of particularly high scholarly value.

        Photographed in color and in black-and-white using the interior lighting of the book vault together with natural light filtering through windows in a neighboring room, Ushioda’s images convey the fascination of the collection, the tranquil aura of the books, the atmosphere of the vault, and the weight of history borne by these materials.

The Tamazato Collection contains a large number of rare books, primarily Japanese and Chinese texts that are invaluable for historical research, stored in boxes made of paulownia wood.

      The Shimazu clan was a family of daimyo who ruled the southern Kyushu region, including Satsuma(薩摩), Osumi(大隅), and Hyuga(日向), for approximately 700 years, from the 12th century during the Kamakura period until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Documents and texts handed down within the main branch of the clan are currently housed at the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo and at the Shoko Shuseikan Museum in Kagoshima. The Tamazato branch’s possessions are housed in separate locations in Kagoshima: books at the Kagoshima University Library, other documents, furnishings, and objects at the Reimeikan Museum.

      The Rare Books Room of the Kagoshima University Library also holds many other books and documents, some of which are featured in the photographs in this exhibition.

Notes on Photographing the Tamazato Collection

The Bibliotheca project started when I felt the sudden desire to capture the sheer physical beauty of a book I owned (the Misuzu Shobo hardcover edition of Masao Maruyama’s Between War and Postwar).

      For this fifth work in the series (following Images Nostalgiques De L’editeur – Misuzu, My Teacher’s Atelier, Bibliotheca – Views of the Books, and Before Renovation, Kanagawa Prefectural Library, Mayekawa Kunio Library Annex), I photographed the Tamazato Collection, a collection of rare books originally established by Hisamitsu Shimazu of the Tamazato clan that is now housed in the library of Kagoshima University.

      I spent three years, beginning in 2019, creating this series. All photography took place in the library’s book vault, using the interior lights and sunlight that reached me through the windows of a neighboring room.

      My equipment included three Bronica S2 cameras, a Zenzanon 100mm lens, Nikkor 40mm and 50mm wide-angle lenses, Nikkor 75mm and 135mm lenses, a close-up lens, tripods by Gitzo and Velbon, a Kenko light meter, and medium-format (Brownie) film. Just to be safe, I also had a Canon EOS-1 with a zoom lens with me.

      I carried all of this equipment – heavy as a millstone – in a carry-on suitcase on my flights between Haneda and Kagoshima.

      In November 2021, relieved to have completed my photography of the Tamazato Collection, I arrived at Haneda airport in Tokyo only to realize I had left the suitcase containing all my equipment and the exposed rolls of film at the boarding gate in Kagoshima.

      Luckily, everything was safely returned to me a few days later via courier.

Tokuko Ushioda

This project was only possible thanks to the generous support of many people, including Kenji Niwa (Kagoshima University), Kurahito Tada (National Institute of Japanese Literature), and everyone at the Kagoshima University Library and Rare Books Room. I am deeply grateful for all their support.

Tokuko Ushioda

Born in Tokyo, Japan. Tokuko Ushioda studied under Kiyoji Otsuji at Kuwasawa Design School and graduated in 1963. She taught at Kuwasawa Design School and Tokyo Zokei University from 1966 to 1978. She began working as a freelance photographer since 1975. In 2018 her Bibliotheca series won the Domon Ken Award, the Photographic Society of Japan’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Higashikawa International Photo Festival’s Domestic Photographer Award. Other representative works include ICE BOX, in which she photographed the contents of various families’ refrigerators. In 2019 she won the Kuwasawa Special Award. In 2022, her photobook My Husband won the Jurors’ Special Mention at the Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Awards.