Fusako Kodama: 1960–1980
Balancing between agitation and lightness, Fusako Kodama captures the vibrant spirit of modern Japan. From 1960 to 1980, her photographs convey the atmosphere of places and the restless energy of people. Movement is ever-present; moments of disorder arise; gestures appear carefree and instinctive. Kodama’s spontaneous eye seizes forward momentum, creating surprising perspectives in which subjects often seem slightly out of sync.
Through unusual framings and instinctive choices, Kodama portrays the pulse of Japan’s cities and villages, offering a body of work that is both gentle and electric. Her prolific practice spans two decades, revealing an effervescent vision of a society in transformation.
1960–1980 is Kodama’s first book to be published in the West, where her work remains relatively little known. The publication reflects Chose Commune’s commitment to bringing contemporary Japanese photographers to a wider international audience.
About the Author
Fusako Kodama (b. 1945, Wakayama, Japan) is a Japanese photographer who studied at the Kuwasawa Design School in Tokyo under Yasuhiro Ishimoto and Seiiji Otsuji, both deeply connected to modernism and the Bauhaus legacy. After graduating in 1967, she worked for the company Le Mars and, in 1970, gained early recognition with her inclusion in “Younger Eyes” in the Japan Photo Almanac by Heibonsha. From the 1970s onward, she collaborated extensively with Graphication, the Fuji Xerox magazine, where she developed a visual language that combined everyday observation with formal experimentation.
Her work includes seminal series such as Criteria (1990), focused on nuclear power plants and high-tech landscapes, and Tokyo Kinetic (1992), an intense black-and-white portrait of urban life. During the same period, she contributed to Asahi Camera with the series “Tokyo Cruising” (1993–95). She was awarded the Annual Prize of the Photographic Society of Japan (1993) and the Kuwasawa Award (1995), and has exhibited widely in solo and group shows, including About Big Cities (Berlin, 1993) and Women Photographers’ Eyes 1945–1997 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, which also holds twenty of her prints depicting Tokyo and Tokyo Bay from 1970 to 1977.
Through her spontaneous eye and unconventional framing, Kodama portrayed Japan between the 1960s and 1980s as a society in constant motion, marked by instinctive gestures and unexpected perspectives. Still relatively unknown in the West, her work—recently revisited by Chose Commune with the publication of 1960–1980—reveals a vibrant and vital imagination, capturing the tension between modernity and tradition in postwar Japan.
