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Engaging analogue processes through image, design and jewellery, Sirocco Studios is a model for cultural discovery, cultivating experiences that value commitment and care.
+Conversation with James John Midwinter about Fragrant River, Flowing Field
Could you share some context about your journey from Kagawa to Nagano: when it took place, how long it lasted, and how you experienced it?
It was a three week trip in October 2023, something my partner and I had desired for a long time. It was actually a round trip, from Osaka, through Kagawa, then to Nagano, Kyoto and back to Osaka, but Kagawa and Nagano, were the most westerly and easterly places we visited, and I liked the translations of their names, so I used some artistic licence for the name of the book.
It's impossible to sum up our experience, it was so rich and varied. It felt like we learned a lot while there, but at the same time only saw a sliver of the culture and country. There were a lot of intangible things I noticed while there, the subtle differences in the way one moves through a place. The balance between nature and society.
As a small example though: While I am always most drawn to exploring nature, I found myself struck by the built environment of Japan. It was the design of its architecture and infrastructure that most held my attention, and left a lasting impression. Strangely, the scale of the roads cutting through the mountains is one of my first strong memories of being there.
Part of me wants to reject these structures that impose themselves on nature, but coming from the UK, where public infrastructure is often underfunded and inefficient, Japan felt really impressive.
I want to preserve nature, but I'm also a socialist who lives within a capitalist society, so public spending on efficient and effective public infrastructure is important, and I'd prefer it to be like Japan's than say HS2 in the UK. There is a lot more nuance to this subject, but these were thoughts I had on travelling through the country.
This wasn’t a theme I explored much in this book, I was drawn more to traditional Japanese buildings in my photographs, but I did include a little of the stark beauty and atmosphere of the Tadao Ando buildings and projects we visited, as a nod to more modern Japanese architecture.
What were your intentions when photographing the road trip, and did you envision the images to come together as a photobook?
I actually didn’t go with any intentions. Japan is somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit, and I’ve been so influenced by its culture and many of its photographers that I was wary about going with preconceived ideas. I just wanted to be there, and take in what came to me.
With the awareness that I was just a tourist, I knew I needed any work I made to be more about the personal than the representational. I’m trying to recreate my experience, what I felt, rather than a book about Japan.
My insecurities did ask if work shot in Japan, by a western photographer, who is deeply influenced by Eastern culture, is just destined to be a pastiche, or at worst, a cliché?
I didn't really look at the photographs I took for over a year and a half. Then a few months ago, after a tough year, I wanted to dip back into better times, so I started to piece together the photographs into combinations that rekindled that energy and those emotions.
Ironically, I can now see the influence of all the photographers I admire in these works, I guess there's no escaping what has shaped us. Looking at it more positively now, I feel comfortable with how their influence inherently bleeds into what I’ve made. I see it as a testament to their great contributions to the creative conversation.
(As a nice side benefit of this, a friend recently introduced me to the work of Kishin Shinoyama, as one of my works reminded them of one of his.)
I focused on creating a series of combinations that are playful, and represent the connections I felt between nature, my relationship with my partner, my love, the architecture, the spirituality and the atmosphere we encountered.
As with my previous book, Rock Pile of the Summer Dwelling, it's a portrait of my relationship, and the relationships I see around me. It's my partner, my time in a place, and I guess me, all connected.
How did the graphic design choices, such as the choice of paper and printing, as well as the gatefold opening and Kangxi binding, shape or respond to your photographs?
I see making a book not only as a vessel for my photographs. It has to reflect them, and comfortably show them, but it is also its own piece of artwork. The journey I go on while making it, and its final form are just as important to me as the photographs within it.
The gatefold opening was probably where the project began. I took part in one of Matt Martin's excellent binding workshops at Toner Gallery in Penzance. He showed us a couple of stab binding variations, one of which included gatefold pages, and this opened up possibilities for how to present my work from the trip.
I've always loved the way 和本 Wahon, (traditional Japanese books) open and read in the opposite direction to western books. I get a small joy from this surprising change to our western assumptions of form, but I didn't want to just make a pastiche of these books. The gatefold felt like a nice nod to them, a mix of West and East, to reflect the nature of what I was making. The book opens in a traditionally western orientation, but each page folds out and back in the reverse of this.
I wanted to use the book making process as a way to develop my skill in this beautiful Japanese craft, which I've admired for a long time, but stab binding makes it difficult to fully open a book. It can be awkward to include double page spreads of landscape orientated images. The gatefold allowed me the freedom to include them.
I try to make objects that embrace imperfection, and while I aspire to precision, I'm not really interested in a clean, clinical finish. I also have a desire to make books that feel valuable, but are priced in a way that is accessible. Small runs, but relatively affordable, which is a challenge.
The paper I use is a flecked recycled stock. It has a warmth that reflects the washi or tea stained silver gelatin paper I use to make my prints and will age with its owners, yellowing a little over the years.
I used Risograph printing, a Japanese invention, for my first book, and I couldn't imagine making this book another way. The soy ink is a pure black, something that other modern printing processes often struggle to achieve, and the texture of each print is grainy and rich. It smudges in places, and comes away on the fingers a little.
These choices remind the owners of the book that it was made in a small batch, with natural materials, by the artist.