Beyond the Mountains is SIPF 2020’s Dummy Photobook Winner.

Located 500 kilometers away from the Tokyo metropolitan area, the disposal site among Aomori and Iwate prefectural border was an isolated field of 27 hectares, the largest illegal waste dump site in Japan. This project is for the reminder of what we have indirectly done in here, in exchange for the economic growth in the 20th century.

The illegal dumping began in the early 1990s, and the case came to light in 1999. The removal of the waste started in 2004 and finished in 2013. The most notable fact of this case was that the dumped wastes were a variety of industrial wastes, most of them were brought from Tokyo metropolitan area via an intermediate processor near Tokyo.

Except for the one of Tokyo, all photographs in this project are originally from the archival pictures on the internet (mainly from Aomori Prefectural Government website / all archival photos are with permission.)