The photographs of Uraguchi reveal the harshness of the life the ama have always led in a hostile natural environment, and the dangers they face while fishing. (…) At the point in time when Uraguchi began to photograph the ama, he probably did not think that 20 years later he would publish a book of his images. Nevertheless, the amateur photographer, then in his thirties, noticed the changes taking place in their way of life and undertook to document the evolution of their world over the long term.

(Chihiro Minato, excerpt from his text)

For centuries, ama – Japanese women divers – have fed the Japanese imagination. These free-divers collect abalone, shellfish and seaweed, the sale of which ensures their financial independence within the household. Kusukazu Uraguchi (1922-1988) has been photographing them in the Shima region, along the Pacific coast of Japan, for over thirty years since mid-1950s. The fruit of extensive research among nearly 40,000 negatives – almost all of them previously unpublished – this remarkable archive of landscapes, portraits and underwater views tells the story of both the daily life and the singularity of the ama community within Japanese society. This book, edited by Sonia Voss, brings together Uraguchi’s photographs for the first time, on the occasion of their exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arles this summer.

The exhibition in Arles was accompanied by the book Shima no Ama, and this will be reprinted specially for the exhibition in Huis Marseille. It is published by Atelier EXB in two language editions, English and French. The texts are by photographer and visual anthropologist Chihiro Minato and Sonia Voss, under the editorship of Sonia Voss.

• Shima no Ama, Kusukazu Uraguchi
• Published by Atelier EXB
• Texts by Chihiro Minato, Sonia Voss
• hardcover
• 22 × 28 cm
• 119 B&W photographs
• 168 pages
• English, French