Sanrizuka (SIGNED)

Kazuo Kitai
Sanrizuka (SIGNED)

Photographs: Kazuo Kitai

Publisher: Noro-sha

184 pages

Year: 1971

Comments: Softcover in cardboard box, 24,3 x 18,1 cm. 2nd printing, signed copy. Referenced in « The Photobook: A History, Volume III » by Parr & Badger, p 56. Some wears on slipcase. The book itself is in very good condition. Signed by Kazuo Kitai

Kitai's photographic account of the Sanrizuka farmer's resistance to the government's plan to built Narita airport is curiously his first step away from student radicalism. In many respects it is the opposite of Mitome's work on the same subject, also published in 1971 (see item 108). In his grainy images Kitai shows the soft side of the struggle, the long pauses between the fight, the waiting, the picnics, the harvest, the incongruous kinen shashin amongst the barricades. He consciously avoids images of anger and violence. As such it is a superb exercise in subjectivity. This book is rare as it was printed in a small number. A second edition was published in 1975.