$50.34
- Softcover
- 192 pages
- 257 x 173 mm
- ISBN 9784865412116
- Japanese
- Sep 2025
Originally photographed in New York over a span of five years beginning in 2007, Life Studies is a photobook revisited over a long period, with its images continually re-considered, re-framed, and woven together, revealing layers of significance through the ongoing process of assembly. "They are reflections of my guts," Fujioka remarks, revealing her inner struggles and conflicts at the time.
Moving between the intimacy of the room and the restless streets, Fujioka captures the tremor of light, the presence of people, the solitude that drifts apart from society, and the fluid expressions of gender and desire. Yet the photographs themselves bear little trace of the photographer's personal identity; instead, they invite viewers to see them as moments that could be experienced by anyone in New York, regardless of gender, race, or identity. In doing so, Fujioka blurs the distinction between who stands behind and before the camera, the personal and the collective, the observer and the observed, the intimate and the anonymous, inviting viewers into a subtle and transitional narrative of urban life. Together, these form both a "study of life" and a "sketch of lives"--the vital current running through Fujioka's photographic practice.
The book opens on the streets, wandering through the city with the gaze of an immigrant, weaving together a multitude of scenes before arriving at moments of quiet, intimate confrontation. Because each photograph is a fragment--a snap of life--countless narratives arise, and time and existence are reconfigured anew. Through the paradox of the snapshot, Fujioka achieves a rich, layered form of expression.
Comprising 168 color and black-and-white images, the book concludes with a long text written by the artist herself. Her words drift between reality and fiction, resonating deeply with the photographs through their palpable sense of lived experience. Life Studies quietly yet profoundly illuminates the core of Fujioka's practice, where art and life are inseparable.
Aya Fujioka
Born in 1972 in Hiroshima Prefecture, Fujioka graduated from the Department of Photography at Nihon University College of Art in 1994. She later studied at the Mandarin Training Center of National Taiwan Normal University.
In 2007, she traveled to New York for further studies supported by the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs. After returning to Japan in 2012, she was based in Hiroshima for several years.
Her major works include Comment te dire adieu, saudade, "I Don't Sleep", "Here Goes River", "Ayako Ekoda-kibun / My Life as a Dog", and Life Studies.
Inspired by encounters in Taiwan, she embarked on an 18-month journey across Estonia, Finland, the UK, France, Slovakia, and Hungary. Drawing from these diverse experiences, she produced Comment te dire adieu, which received the Visual Arts Photo Award in 2004. Her work "I Don' t Sleep" was awarded the Photographic Society of Japan Newcomer' s Award in 2010.
"Here Goes River" , a work capturing present-day Hiroshima more than 70 years after the war, won the Ina Nobuo Award in 2016, as well as the Tadahiko Hayashi Award and the Kimura Ihei Photography Award in 2018.
Public Collection:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Higashi-Hiroshima Art Museum
