Across Borders: Naoki Ishikawa

Across Borders: Naoki Ishikawa

Photographic exhibition featuing Ishikawa's photos of sister perfecture/province Hokkaido and Alberta.

The Embassy of Canada is pleased to present a photographic exhibition by Naoki Ishikawa, featuring his photos of Alberta and Hokkaido.

Hokkaido and Alberta became sister prefecture and province in 1980 and this touring exhibition was organised to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the relationship. Having opened at the Royal Alberta Museum last October, it then moved to the Hokkaido Museum in November. We now have the privilege of showing the exhibit at the Prince Takamado Gallery as the final portion of the tour.

Alberta and Hokkaido have many similarities including climate, topography, and the presence of indigenous peoples. Naoki Ishikawa offers a contemporary perspective on the shared and distinct aspects of the two places by employing an insightful, artistic approach to photography, which he acquired through travel to the earth's far corners including the Arctic and the highest peaks of seven continents. Viewers will discover for themselves the commonalities between Alberta and Hokkaido, and more broadly between Canada and Japan.

Born in Tokyo in 1977, Naoki Ishikawa is interested in anthropology and ethnology in addition to exploration of the unknown. He has published works on the experiences of migration and travel. For The Void (published by Knee High Media) he won both the Sagamihara Prize for Newcomer Professionals and the Jun Miki Award, in 2006. For New Dimension and Polar (published by Akaakasha and Little More, respectively), he received the Photographic Society of Japan's Newcomer's Award and the Kodansha Publication Culture Award, in 2008. For his work in 2009, which included Mt. Fuji and Vernacular (published by Little More and AkaAkasha, respectively), he received the Higashikawa Award for "Best New Photographer." Vernacular includes photographs of the Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands) in the Canadian Northwest and of the Arctic towns of Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. Ishikawa also won the Domon Ken Award for Corona, a photographic portrayal of reality across the widely scattered islands of Polynesia.

For more information, please visit the following website: http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/japan-japon/events-evenements/gallery-20160202-galerie.aspx?lang=eng