Kenji Higuchi - Yokkaichi - 1972

Yokkaichi

Kenji Higuchi
MutsukishaShobou/1972/Japanese/210*150*150

Yokkaichi” is a collection of photographs by Japanese photographer Kenji Higuchi, born in 1937. After graduating from high school, Higuchi began working for Kawasaki Steel, and felt pollution on a daily basis. Inspired by a photo exhibition on pollution in Kawasaki held by the photography department of Waseda University, he quit his job and enrolled in the Tokyo College of Photography, where in 1966 he saw a newspaper article about an elderly man in Yokkaichi who had been afflicted by pollution and committed suicide because he could no longer bear the hardships of life, and decided to investigate this issue. This book documents the devastation of the people of Yokkaichi, the pollution patients, and the industrial complexes that are the source of air pollution. The following is from the foreword: “High economic growth strongly promotes industrial development and corporate growth, for which the residents must continue to be sacrificed and their health and lives destroyed. In any age, the weakest residents must always live with the fate of being oppressed. As a farmer myself, I have experienced firsthand the weight of such history. This experience has inevitably led me to become interested in pollution issues. I decided that I would like to play a role as a witness to this history, even if only a little, through my camera.