Daido Moriyama - To Nirvana and Back - 2004

To Nirvana and Back to 2004 photobook by the critically acclaimed Japanese street photographer Daido Moriyama. Published by Gendai Kikaku shitsu, the book serves as a unique documentation of an avant-garde theatrical performance held in Japan.

The book serves as a comprehensive photo album detailing a highly specialized production of Shakespeare's King Lear, which was renamed Real King Lear. The experimental play was written and directed by Dutch artist Christiaan Bastiaans and staged in the rural Japanese town of Echigo-Tsumari. Bastiaans’ production intentionally weaved elements of local Japanese history with the real life stories of the performing actors' own families.

Moriyama collaborated on this project alongside award-winning designer Daisuke Nakatsuka to translate the theatrical experience into a tactile publication. Rather than simply being a book of stage production stills, it is structured as a complex visual diary and research archive.

Key artistic elements of the book include:
Theatrical and Cultural Juxtaposition: Moriyama's high-contrast photography heavily features images of blooming summer flowers, local hedges, narrow alleys, and traditional minka houses from the village.

The outdoor and stage imagery is intricately juxtaposed against historical family portraits, research material, and interviews conducted with local Japanese pensioners.

While Moriyama is universally known for his gritty, alienated, "Are-Bure-Boke" (grainy, blurry, out-of-focus) urban snapshots, To Nirvana and Back captures a more localized, melancholic essence of human engagement with nature, projecting a spiritual reflection on life and higan (the "other shore" or nirvana).

Book Specifications
Format: Softcover with a dust jacket and obi (belly band).
Length: 214–216 pages.
Language: Bilingual text printed in both English and Japanese.
Dimensions: 17.50 x 25.50 cm.