shashasha

I would always find chimneys and cacti, rusting fences and telephone poles and aloe trees after I had arrived, things that feign ignorance, old buildings quietly drawing their breath in one part of town.

I would let myself be guided by these objects, go on walks with no particular destination, and begin to relax, refresh my mind, and be excited about each corner I turned.

Bugs and weeds and fish and flowers would wriggle there, things alive and dead, quietly or with loud sounds. And strange feelings would overcome me, I would feel like I know a town I did not know, and became sentimental for a place I visited for the first.

— Excerpt from the artist’s afterword

Chieko Shiraishi’s humorous, melancholic debut photobook features nostalgic views and strange objects she encountered on travels between 1998 and 2008.