blue tide / 青潮

solo work / February 2021
A5 photo book / 96 pages

I began this project shortly after arriving in Japan in the Fall of 2018. My family and I would visit our grandmother in our family's hometown frequently. By the time of my arrival in Japan, she had already been living between the hospital and rehabilitation center due to her old age. I knew the possibility of her passing away during my time in Japan was high. So I took my camera along every trip and photographed quietly for two years.

Upon her ultimate passing, I was left with a body of photos that documented the last year of my grandmother's life. But sitting on the photos, and interrogating them further, I came to understand that over the course of the two years of making the book, I had also been documenting my growth, and the crystallization of my Japanese identity. This book is an expression of both.