Akihiko Okamura
The Memories of Others
11 April - 06 July 2024
Photo Museum Ireland is delighted to present the world premiere of The Memories of Others exhibition, photobook and film on the Irish work of Japanese photographer Akihiko Okamura.
From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, renowned Japanese war photographer Akihiko Okamura (1929-1985) created a remarkable, compelling and largely unseen body of work in Ireland, north and south. This exhibition also launches a major programme which include sa documentary film and the first publication on Okamura’s Irish work. After covering the Vietnam War, Akihiko Okamura went to Ireland in 1968 to visit the country of JFK’s ancestors. Soon after, in 1969, he decided to move to Ireland with his family. From then on, he continually photographed the Troubles in the North and his life with his family in the South, until he suddenly passed away, in 1985. His photographs of Ireland, which have barely been seen before, demonstrate a unique artistic vision. This uniqueness is partly because Okamura chose to live in Ireland: of all the international photographers active during those years, he was in this sense a singular case of absolute commitment to Irish and Northern Irish history. This fusion with his subject matter led him to create images which were innovative both in terms of his own practice and of the photographic representation of the Troubles. His profound, personal relationship with Ireland allowed him to develop a new method of documenting conflict: poetic and ethereal moments of peace in a time of war.
Unlike other representations of the North of Ireland at that time, Okamura’s photographs are almost all in colour. Made in the North as well as in the South of Ireland, his photographs broke from the photojournalistic tradition, creating a series of still lives and abstractions. Their gentle, muted palette operates in counterpoint to the violent situation in which they were produced; they are remarkably out of sync with the conventional, black-and-white, “heroic” photographic representations that have come to define this period. Okamura’s work reveals a more subjective perspective, often going beyond conventional photographic representations of riots, burning cars and bombed buildings, to capture quieter, intimate, quasi-surreal moments that reveal his empathetic concern for the communities he photographed. This intuitive narrative choice was intimately connected to the depth of his attachment to Ireland and the Irish people. While Okamura remains highly respected in Japan, his Irish work and experience, crucial to both his oeuvre and his personal life, had never been studied until now. The rediscovery of this archive constitutes a revelation both for the history of Japanese photography and Irish history.
Akihiko Okamura’s biography: Photographer Akihiko Okamura was born in 1929 in Tokyo. He began training in medicine but dropped out, joining the editorial team at New Weekly in 1961. Assigned to a story in Bangkok, he turned to photography, going on to record international conflicts. He distinguished himself as a very important war photographer in Vietnam in the 1960s. There, he photographed, among others, the prisoners of war held by the Vietcong after he himself was held by them for 53 days. His work appeared in Life and other major publications at the time. Constantly striving to tell the story of conflicts and of human rights violations, Okamura’s photojournalism took him to conflict zones from Ethiopia to Biafra, and Northern Ireland. He cited his own “dark memory” of childhood terror in Tokyo under Second World War bombing attacks as the source of his urge to tell the story of conflicts through pictures. Akihiko Okamura settled in Ireland with his family in 1969 and lived there until he passed away in 1985.
Memories of Others photobook: A new book published by acclaimed publishers Atelier EXB (co-published in English by Prestel), edited by Pauline Vermare and featuring essays by Pauline Vermare, Masako Toda, Seán O’Hagan and texts by Kusi Okamura and Trish Lambe accompanies the exhibition priced €58. Visit Photo Museum Ireland’s online bookshop here.
Film Premiere The Memories of Others: A new documentary film uncovering Akihiko Okamura’s extraordinary Irish work and the artistic and emotional impact of its recent rediscovery. Directed by Pauline Vermare and Marc Lesser. Produced by Lucky Tiger Productions, New York 2023, colour - 20 minutes duration.
Exhibition curatorial team: Pauline Vermare, Sean O’Hagan, Masako Toda, Trish Lambe and Brendan Maher. Photobook: Jordan Alves for Atelier EXB - edited by Pauline Vermare. All images; © Estate of Akihiko Okamura. The exhibition, book and film are produced in collaboration with the Okamura Archive, Tokyo, and the Estate of Akihiko Okamura, Hakodate.
Photo Museum Ireland wishes to thank the Okamura family and Masako Toda for their support and assistance with this exhibition. Thanks also to David Kronn and the Photo Museum Ireland Patrons. The programme is supported by RTÉ Supporting the Arts.
The Memories of Others Programme of FREE events
Exhibition Premiere and Opening Event: 6.00pm on Thursday 11 April 2024
Join us at Photo Museum Ireland to celebrate the official opening of The Memories of Others by Japanese photographer Akihiko Okamura.
Film Premiere: 8.30pm on Thursday 11 April in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar
Attend the world premiere of this newly created documentary film uncovering Akihiko Okamura’s extraordinary work in Ireland at this free public outdoor screening event. Directed by Pauline Vermare and Marc Lesser. Produced by Lucky Tiger Productions, New York.
International Curator Portfolio Reviews: 10.30am - 12.00 on Friday 12 April
We are delighted to offer artists this unique opportunity to avail of these free portfolio review sessions with experienced and internationally recognised photography specialists. Sessions will last 20 minutes. Places are limited.
Curators Panel Discussion: 1.00 - 2.00 pm Friday 12 April 2024
Join us for a discussion on the project with our international panel of curators:
– Pauline Vermare, curator and historian, specialist on Japanese and Irish photography
–Masako Toda, leading photo historian, critic and curator of Japanese photography
– Seán O’Hagan, writer on photography for The Guardian, features writer for The Observer
– Kusi Okamura, writer & daughter of Akihiko
– Marc Lesser, Director, Lucky Tiger Productions
Photobook Publisher’s Talk: Atelier EXB: 2.00 pm- 3.00 pm Friday 12 April
Jordan Alves, associate editor at Atelier EXB, one of the world’s leading photobook publishers, will discuss the creation of The Memories of Others photobook and the work of this acclaimed publishing house.
Ten-Minute Exhibition Tours:
Join us every Wednesday at 1.15 pm for a free bite-sized ten-minute tour of the show.
About our Curators
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Pauline Vermare is a French photography historian and curator based in New York. She was previously the cultural director of Magnum Photos, New York, and a curator at the International Center of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art and the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the visual representation of Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2022. She is the author of numerous interviews and essays on photography. Pauline Vermare grew up in France and in Japan, and has been working on several projects around the history of Japanese photography over the years including this new project showcasing the Irish work of Akihiko Okamura. She sits on the Boards of the Saul Leiter Foundation and the Catherine Leroy Fund.
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Masako Toda is a photo historian, author, and curator of Japanese photography. She holds a masters from The University of Tokyo, Department of Humanities and Sociology. Toda is a lecturer at Musashino Art University, and Tokyo College of Photography, among others. In 2006, she was awarded the incentive award by the Japan Society for Arts and History of Photography. Toda’s field of expertise is the history of modernism as well as postwar Japanese photography. She compiled a book about Akihiko Okamura’s Photographs and Texts in 2020 by Akaaka Art Publishing. She is also the author of the photography monograph Hisae Imai, published by Akaaka Art Publishing, in 2022, and co-author of Japanese Photography Magazines 1880s-1980s published by Goliga in 2022. She is the curatorial expert for the Estate of Akihiko Okamura.
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Seán O’Hagan is an award-winning journalist who has interviewed many major artists, writers and musicians over the last four decades. Brought up in Armagh he has written about his experience of the Troubles. As an undergraduate, he studied English in London. O’Hagan began his media career as a writer for NME, The Face and Arena, and during this period became interested in photography. He has established an international reputation as a writer on photography for The Guardian and a features writer for The Observer. In 2003, he received the British Press Award for Interviewer of the Year. In 2011 he was the sole recipient of the J. Dudley Johnston Award from the Royal Photographic Society "for major achievement in the field of photographic criticism". In 2022, Canongate in the U.K. and Farrar, Strauss & Giroux in the US simultaneously published Faith, Hope, and Carnage, O’Hagan’s longform lockdown conversation with musician, Nick Cave, which became a Sunday Times bestseller.
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Trish Lambe is the Artistic Director/CEO at Photo Museum Ireland, Ireland’s national centre for contemporary photography. She is overall responsible for exhibition curation, artistic programming and the museum’s artists’ archiving initiative. Her curatorial practice is concerned with social and political issues in Ireland. Recent projects include the Reframing the Border 5-year cross-border programme and the In Our Own Image year-long survey of contemporary practices in Ireland. She founded the Photo Album of the Irish vernacular photography project and is a nominator for awards and commissions including the Deutsche Borse Prize and the Prix Pictet.
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Born in 1989, Jordan Alves initially studied the applied arts, specialising in industrial design. After various experiences in this field, he turned to the visual arts and exhibition curating. Encountering these territories, photography book publishing became an important focus of interest, and his meeting with Xavier Barral in 2015 marked the beginning of his journey within the eponymous publishing house. His collaboration with the publisher sharpened his curiosity for images, and the editorial demands that were passed on to him became an objective to be achieved for all projects. Each publication is a dialogue with the artists and a singular object. Since 2020, Jordan Alves has been with Atelier EXB, taking over from Xavier Barral in the publishing adventure with his 4 partners.
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Brendan Maher is an experienced photography archivist, curator and fine art printer. A specialist in the field of photography digitisation, archiving, copyright and licensing, he is the Collection Manager for Photo Museum Ireland’s Archive of Irish Contemporary Photography collection. He previously worked at the National Gallery of Ireland and at Archives Ireland. He holds an MA in Photography from Ulster University.
The Memories of Others in the press
