Aya Fujioka set out to shake the weight of history from her home city and capture her own relationship with it. But she couldn’t help picking up echoes from the past …
Main image: Dance stance … Photograph: Aya Fujioka
Thu 7 Aug 2025 08.00 CEST
Here Goes River captures Japanese photographer Aya Fujioka’s home town of Hiroshima in 2017. The award-winning series documents the quiet, everyday spaces of the city – mundane, almost incidental scenes that are suffused with the invisible weight of the past. This year is the 80th anniversary of the catastrophic atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. Selected works will be on display at international art fair Tokyo Gendai at Pacifico Yokohama, Japan, from September 12-14. All photographs: Aya Fujioka
Aya Fujioka: ‘It wasn’t until I started this project that I noticed how deeply rivers shape Hiroshima. They’re woven into everyday life, and through photographing them, I came to feel more connected to the city’
