Ayako Koide




poetry / writing

   Technopoetry
   Photohaiku   
   Essays

translation / Editing

   Goze by Shoko Hashimoto
   Japanese post-war photography

Others

   Blog - Goze Uta
   Collaboration
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© 2024 Ayako Koide. All Rights Reserved.

‘Akira Tanno’s Circus: Undividable History’ in Akira Tanno: Circus of Showa, Japan 1956-1957 (Zen Foto Gallery, 2015)


Akira Tanno (1925-2015) was a Japanese postwar photographer who had played a vital role in a foremost and influential photography agency called Vivo, consisted of the most acclaimed postwar photographers such as Eikoh Hosoe, Kikuji Kawada, Ikko Narahara, Akira Sato and Shomei Tomatsu and Tanno himself. While Tanno’s photography quite widely appeared in magazines about ballet, music and lifestyle, he was an active member of Vivo and took photographs with his own subjects ranging from ballet dancers, musical players, Okinawa, coal miners to industrial pollution. This photobook features his photography capturing Japanese circus between 1956 and 1957, which was, as it were, preserved the prewar time by incorporating more vernacular circus acts that were soon to disappear upon the arrival of the western circus and various means of entertainment. I provided an essay on Tanno’s work featured in the publication as well as co-editing the book and translating Tanno’s afterwords and profile. Download the essay.

‘2 x 2: Concatenations, Overflow of Inner Images’ and ‘Mechanism, the Machine, Photography’ in Issei Suda: Kamagasaki Magic Lantern 2000/2014 (Zen Foto Gallery, 2015)


Issei Suda (1940-2019) was one of the most respected contemporary photographers of Japan. His photographic images, often taken in streets of Tokyo’s downtown areas, are distinctive and unique, making his own lineage in the Japanese street photographic tradition, often being described as ‘capturing extraordinary in the ordinary’. This publication consisted of two photobooks, focuses on his photographs taken in Kamagasaki, a town of day-labours in Osaka. The photoshoot in Kamagasaki in 2104 was a challenge for him, Suda said, for he had been distancing himself from addressing politics and journalistic approach. However, Suda, in fact, had already shot the town back in 2000, and the publication compiles his works from both 2000 and 2014. Accompanying his photoshoot in Kamagasaki in 2014, I provided essays for his two photographic bodies of works and co-edited the photobooks. Download the essay.