A Port Town Elegy — Mao Ishikawa — Zen Foto Gallery — 2015

Ishikawa photographs from inside the world she depicts. In 1983, while running a bar near Naha’s Aja-Shinko port, she began photographing dockworkers, fishermen and the men who gathered in a nearby house to drink, argue and fight. Her proximity strips away the distance of conventional documentary photography: violence, friendship, alcohol and male vulnerability coexist without explanation. Originally self-published in 1990, the work was re-edited and reissued by Zen Foto Gallery in 2015 in an edition of 700 copies.

Technical Sheet
Title: A Port Town Elegy
Artist / Author: Mao Ishikawa
Date: 2015
Edition: Reprinted new edition, limited to 700 copies
Medium / Materials: Softcover
Dimensions: 25.7 × 17.8 cm
Pages: 96
Language: Japanese / English
Publisher: Zen Foto Gallery