1970-01-01 02:00:00
Ricardo Tokugawa is the author of the photo book “Utaki”, by the Brazilian publisher Lovely House, released in 2021. Held in the middle of the pandemic, he had the collaboration of his parents and grandmother as characters in their own stories. The artist traces an imaginary about Okinawa, traditions, Brazilian and Japanese influences, transmission and family.
Ricardo Tokugawa is the author of the photo book “Utaki”, by the Brazilian publisher Lovely House, released in 2021. Held in the middle of the pandemic, he had the collaboration of his parents and grandmother as characters in their own stories. The artist traces an imaginary about Okinawa, traditions, Brazilian and Japanese influences, transmission and family.
Patrícia Moribe, from Paris
When scheduling the interview, Ricardo Tokugawa recalls that it takes place during the week of commemoration of 115 years of Japanese and Okinawan immigration. “Generally, Japanese immigration is treated only as Japanese immigration, and the ship Kasato Maru arrived in 1908, with 781 immigrants, in the port of Santos, in São Paulo, of which 325 were from the province of Okinawa. But this was not discussed in the time,” he explains.
“I believe that there was an erasure, as Okinawa was annexed by Japan in 1879, generating a cultural erasure, because Okinawa has its own language and culture”, evaluates the photographer. “With this annexation, there was a ban on these practices and with that too, as much as there was this erasure, all this culture went with the immigrants to Brazil”,
An important characteristic of Okinawan culture, points out Ricardo, is the worship of ancestors, whose names appear on a small altar in the house, in addition to specific ceremonies. “And all of this was practiced during my childhood, during my adolescence. I just didn’t understand what it was very well, it was simply something that was practiced. And all of this is passed down from mouth to mouth, from generations to generations . So, there is no book that explains how all this is practiced”.
Over time, Tokugawa recognized the specificities of Okinawan culture and differences with Japanese culture. And the influences where everything happens, that is, Brazil. Hence came the photo book “Utaki“, which in Okinawa is a sacred place of prayer, usually in wild spaces of nature, such as a forest, cave or mountain. The artist studied the region where his ancestors came from and took courses about it.
When looking at the “utaki”, Ricardo does a personal search work through images, working with traditions being transmitted and transformed. The Covid lockdown made him return to his parents and grandmother’s house and this seclusion favored organic moments of creativity. The father’s illness, diagnosed with lymphoma during this period, did not become a protagonist, but a supporting factor in the family story.
The engineer who became a photographer
Rescuing his Okinawan roots also resulted in a career shift: from an engineer with a degree in Civil Engineering from the Polytechnic School of USP in 2008, Ricardo decided to adopt his passion for photography in 2017, when he came to France and followed a two-year course.
After the intensive course, Ricardo trained at Magnum, a mythical agency and one of the most important in the world. He worked on organizing the French-Russian photographer’s archives Gueorgui Pinkhassov before its entry into Magnum. “It was a very enriching experience. First, because it has nothing to do with my personal project and every photo itself, after it is taken, there is an important context behind it and all the thought added to the image by the photographer” .
About a next project, he thinks about working under his own last name, Tokugawa, which baptizes a very important era of Japanese medieval history. “It was a time of military dictatorship, with many atrocities, I don’t know if I’m very proud to have that last name in that sense”, reflects Ricardo.
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