SWISS

SWISS is a photobook by Yurie Nagashima made from photographs and a diary she kept in 2007 during a residency at Village Nomade in Estavayer-le-Lac, Switzerland. This third edition was published by Akaaka Art Publishing in 2024. The first edition appeared in 2010.

The story behind the book

The photographs were inspired by flower pictures Nagashima's grandmother had taken about 25 years earlier, found carefully kept in a box at her late grandfather's house. In Switzerland she photographed the plants on the residency grounds, the light in her room, and her young son who travelled with her.

Like a scrapbook, photo pages, diary pages and kraft paper are bound in random order, with a boarding-pass bookmark and handwritten notes tucked inside. Through flower photographs, she faces her late grandmother, thinks of someone far away, and looks closely at the people nearest to her.

What is in the book

• Photographs and diary entries from a summer in Switzerland (diary in Japanese)
• 214 pages, cloth hardcover, designed by Bunpei Yorifuji and Chikako Suzuki
• The third edition comes in 22 cloth colours with the same contents. The colour you receive may vary.

About Yurie Nagashima

Born in 1973 in Tokyo, Nagashima debuted while still a student with portraits of her family, and later earned an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She received the Kimura Ihei Photography Award for PASTIME PARADISE. She is one of the photographers in I'm So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now, touring Europe and the United States.