Excluded from the human diet and useless for clothing or shelter, the undergrowth thrives and engulfs human existence. It transforms under the snow, rain, wind and sunlight.

Children play Tarzan in the undergrowth or mountain thickets. When the harvest moon appears, they go out to pick the pampass grass.

I pushed my way through the swirling sea of grass. The darkness beneath the thick ivy soothed me. Whenever my parents scolded me, whenever I felt a sense of failure, I would think "Ah, I'm all alone," and go there to hide. It was such a scary place. One day, the smell of chestnuts in the bush told me that I had grown up.

Before humans and their food, clothing and shelter, there was the undergrowth.

-Shoko Hashimoto, Afterword Undergrowth.

Artist Profile

Shoko HASHIMOTO

Born in Ishinomaki in 1939, Hashimoto graduated from Nihon University, College of Art in 1964 specializing in photography. In 1974, he received the Newcomer Award from the Photographic Society of Japan with his photobook “Goze” (Nora-sha). In the same year, the series was selected in the “15 Photographers” exhibition at Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art. Hashimoto photographed Lee Dynasty folk paintings in Korea from 1979 to 1981, published in the book series Minga of the Lee Dynasty in 1982. Since 2011, he has been regularly returning to photograph his hometown, Ishinomaki, which was devastated by the tsunami.

Gallery Exhibitions