Rokkoku is the common name for National Route6. The strange sensations I experienced in Tsushima resonated in my head. One day, when checking on the disasters area including Tsushima I had visited on a map, I noted that many of them are connected by a single road from Tokyo – National Route 6, connecting Tokyo and Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture.

I sat out to drive the length of “Rokkoku” to trace the trajectory of open wound of past and present that led towards Tsushima. The people I countered along the road are chapters of a unexamined history of Japan: Koreans suffering from the Great Kanto Earthquake, a girl who lost five family members in the bombing of Tokyo, a preparatory student selected by the special attack corps “Kamikaze”, a 14 years old boy who went to the volunteer Pioneer Youth Army to Manchuria and Mongolia, a refugee applicant detained for years, and an elementary school student who wrote a slogan for promoting nuclear power, a rancher caring for cattle contaminated with radioactive materials, a man who resists against the construction of big seawalls.

“Rokkoku” is not just road. It is a collective guide post to carve our past, replicate our present, and question our future.

Published in 2023
20 x 19.8 cm
163 pages

Showcased as part of Jimei x Arles: Travelling Photobook Showcase at the 9th SIPF Photobook Showcase

Artist Biography:

Fuminori Sato is a Japanese photographer currently based in Yokohama, Japan. He studied at City College of San Francisco and began his career as a staff photographer for the North Mission District News in San Francisco from 1983 to 1985.

Over the years, he has been affiliated with prominent agencies, including Impact Visuals and Sipa in New York, as well as AsiaWorks in Bangkok. His work has been published in renowned publications such as Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Focus Magazine, and U.S. News & World Report, among others. Sato has authored two books, Dancing Lodo (2003) and Daukoi no Mai (2007), both published by Gaifusha Publishing Company. Most recently, his work was exhibited at the RPS (Reminders Photography Stronghold) Gallery in Japan in September 2023. He is also an active member of the Japan Visual Journalists Association.