Fumi Nagasaka

NowHere is pleased to present the opening of the exhibition In America with recent artworks by a Japanese photographer Fumi Nagasaka.

Photographers have been grappling with the topic of America since the dawn of the medium. Perhaps this is because there’s something about a camera that gives the person working with it a critical distance from which to examine what they put in front of their lens. When we look at the work of seminal documentarians of this country such as Walker Evans, Robert Frank, or Stephen Shore, we see artists coming to terms with the massive complexities of the place. From behind the camera, a person might begin to understand what America means to them. That’s the ideal outcome.

This is certainly the case with Fumi Nagasaka, who has been making photographs in America for more than twenty years now. After extensive experience in street photography (a genre which trains one’s casting abilities to an astonishing degree), Nagasaka found her true muses in two very distinct and special parts of America: New Orleans and rural Alabama. As a Japanese national exploring the United States, Nagasaka is able to show us an entirely new take on the culture and the landscape. What she has found are pockets of narrative and character — readymade stars for her work.

Nagasaka’s photos confound what some people hold as negative stereotypes regarding the South, and it’s refreshing to see this. There is warmth and vibrancy in her subjects, who we can see have trusted her to represent them through a warm and vibrant lens. This is not mere tourism, as some photography of southerners can be. Nagasaka has forged real, lasting connections with the people in her photographs, and through this genuine human bond we are able to see something of the unguarded nature of the subjects.

Nagasaka has also built a connection with the landscape and objects of the south. She masterfully captures the particular light that exists down there, and she has an expert eye for the scenery, whether it is an old florist’s shop or a stack of cans of Vienna sausage. There’s a depth of observation that happens in Nagasaka’s photos; we can tell that her eye is always at work.

Perhaps an American audience needs someone like Fumi Nagasaka to show them their homeland from a fresh perspective. In these divided times, finding and celebrating pockets of beauty in this country—wherever they are—might just be the best way forward for all of us.

Born in Nagoya, Japan, Fumi Nagasaka moved to New York in 2002 to explore North American culture. In 2003 she began working as a freelance photographer for the Japanese cult magazine Street. In the following years she traveled around Europe and the United States shooting documentary photographs. Nagasaka has been photographing youth culture in its myriad forms for more than a decade. Known for her extensive history in street casting, Nagasaka is renowned for her honest and sensitive imagery of people on the street as well as cultures and subcultures. She is known for her ability to capture the essence of a person who is in front of her lens. Winner of the Belfast Photo Festival in 2019, her work was selected to be exhibited as part of the 2021 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery.