The 16th Annual Higashikawa Prize

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Osamu HIRAKI　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　　Higashikawa Prize Jury Member

　The meeting to decide the prize winners for the 16th Higashikawa Prize was held at the end of March in Tokyo, and the Judging Committee members selected the winners out of the photographers that were nominated by the Japanese photographic industry. Each member's heart was filled with expectation about the works that would be chosen for the prizes in the very last year of the 20th century, and the members also hoped that the prize-winning works would represent some messages to the coming century. As summarized below, we could finally select the photographers with ability and uniqueness as well as the works that deserve to mark this important time of our history.　For the Overseas Photographer Prize, the Judging Committee decided to choose this year's candidates from the countries on the Iberian Peninsula with which Japan has maintained relations since old days. Ms. Koko YAMAGISHI, a member of the Judging Committee, visited Spain and Portugal to collect information as much as possible. Consequently, the Committee decided to award the prize to Chema MADOZ, a Spanish photographer born in Madrid in 1958, for his photography collection "OBJETOS" containing monochrome photographs of various items and objects. These objects are not featureless, but are rather impish. For example, a pair of shoes are tied with a shoelace and books are piled up to form an arch, from which no books can be taken out to be read. The objects he deals with exhibit evident sarcasm and satires, but he does not use these objects only to hope for some comical effects. His works have something to do with surrealism that is deeply rooted in Spain. They can be regarded as aspiring works that even now embody surrealism which was once called the greatest new trend of art of this century. Using a tool of realistic representation as a means of grasping reality, and by representing complete inventions right next to reality, his works bring to light the internal spirit of people who are living every day while being conscious of both reality and fiction.　This year's Domestic Photographer Prize is awarded to Naoya HATAKEYAMA, who is the youngest among all the winners of this prize in the past 15 years. He was born in 1958, the same year as Mr. Madoz, in the city of Rikuzentakata, Iwate prefecture. Mr. Hatakeyama is well-known for a series of photography collections titled "Lime Works", but he has also produced substantial works on various challenging themes, has collected materials in Arabian cities and has tried panoramic photographs of the Metropolitan area of Tokyo. The Domestic Photographer Prize is presented to him for a series of photography collections "UNDERGROUND" and other related works that he has published since last year. Literally referring to "underground", the theme of Mr. Hatakeyama who once adhered to limestone hills includes concrete that was transformed from limestone as well as a big city, the ruin of concrete. When he went down to an underground water system carrying lighting apparatuses, the things just in front of him could be called veins of the human body. A city as a living thing seems real to us when we gaze at the urban lifelines of sewers and think of their structure and connections. This kind of imagination emerges by means of very realistic photographic imaging, which indicates the intrinsic value of Hatakeyama's works. He was chosen because the committee members agreed to give the prize to a photographer who was most flourishing in his photographic activity.

The 16th Annual Higashikawa Prize

　The winner of the New Photographer Prize is Keiko NOMURA. She had an exhibition "Deep South" at the PARCO Gallery in Tokyo last year, and a photography collection under the same title was published by Little More Ltd. Publishers. Ms. Nomura was born in 1970 in Kobe, and made her debut as a photographer when she held an exhibition titled "ETSUNAN KAGAN" in 1997 at the Konica Plaza in Tokyo. Having a flexible and firm viewpoint in taking photographs in Vietnam, her works in that exhibition were much talked of. She subsequently visited Okinawa by herself, and the days she spent there were depicted in "An entanglement of dreams / Okinawa" in 1998 that led to "Deep South". In the living environment of the people in Okinawa who had no choice but to coexist with a military base, Ms. Nomura stayed so close beside them as to feel their body temperatures and breathing. But at the same time, her gaze on their feelings and sentiments was always cool, and she showed the brilliance of people who live out their allotted span of life and destiny, without being bound by ideologies or conventional morality. The committee awards the prize to her, not because it places its hopes on her future works, but because she is creating the works that must be handed down to the coming age.　The Special Prize for a photographer who has taken photographs of Hokkaido or who has a connection with Hokkaido is awarded to Masakatsu KUBOTA in Kushiro, whose place of birth, activities and photography themes are in Hokkaido. Born in 1930 in Obihiro, he published "The Four Seasons of Ezo Deer" in a pioneering magazine of nature photographs "ANIMA" in the 1970s. Since then for more than twenty years, he has been energetically taking photographs of Kushiro Marsh and Shiretoko and has presented many photography collections, including "Ezo Deer Herding in Marsh", "Shiretoko" and "HIGUMA (EZO BROWN BEAR)" (published by Heibonsha Ltd. Publishers), to become a veteran photographer. Although the number of photographers who select nature as their themes has been increasing year after year, Mr. Kubota was one of the pioneers in this field, and he is even distinguished in the comprehensive power to vividly describe the ecology of animals while having sufficient understanding of the natural environment such as geographical features, vegetation, climate and other natural features. Finding that this strong power as a photographer explains the fact that still photographs of Mr. Kubota gives a feeling of the changing seasons and of the animals in terms of the speed and the scope of their activities, all the committee members are convinced that he deserves this prize.　This year, Mr. Tokihiro SATO, a photographer, joined the Judging Committee. He won the New Photographer Prize in 1990 and he is now active as an assistant professor at an art college named Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku. It is the great pleasure for all eight members of the Judging Committee to announce the above-mentioned prize winners of this year.

The Overseas Photographer Award

Chema MADOZBorn in Madrid in 1958.

◆ For his work as a photographer, including a series of his photography collections "OBJETOS"

HATAKEYAMA NaoyaBorn in Iwate pref., 19 March 1958

◆ For his work as a photographer, including a series of his photography collections "UNDERGROUND"

　　　　　　 1981 Graduated from The University of Tsukuba, School of Art and Design

1984 Completed Postgraduate Studies at The University of Tsukuba

1996 Resident Artist in Djerassi Resident Artists Program, CA, USA

1997 Received the 22nd Kimura Ihei Memorial Award of Photography

The Domestic Photographer Award

The New Photographer Award

NOMURA Keiko

◆ For her photography collection "DEEP SOUTH"

1970 Born in KOBE.

1992 Left Doshisha womens University.

1994 Graduated from the Photography Department, Visual Arts Academy.

The Special Award

KUBOTA MasakatsuKushiro, Japan

◆ For his work as a photographer, including a series of his photography 　 collections "Shiretoko" and "Ezo Brown Bear"

May 18, 1930 Born in the city of Obihiro, Hokkaido1978 Published "The Four Seasons of Ezo Deer" in a magazine

"ANIMA"Since then, he has been taking photographs of wildlife and natural landscapes in Hokkaido for more than twenty years.