Ichigo Ichie 一期一会

Ichigo Ichie: Hajime Kinoko Photo Essay is a book by Hajime Kinoko, a contemporary artist, kinbakushi, rope artist and photographer, published by Sanwa Shuppan in October 2016 in its Sanwa Mook series. The National Diet Library records it as 129 pages, with text in Japanese and English.

Kinoko’s official profile lists the photo-essay collection under 2016 within a run of photobooks it lists for every year from 2016 to 2020, including Red (2016) and Perfect Red (2018). The library also holds two earlier books: a kinbaku photobook from Taiyō Tosho (2014) whose English parallel title is “Fly agaric rope artworks”, and a 2015 Sanwa Shuppan photobook of a model he both tied and photographed.

In the statement on his profile, Kinoko says that for him tying is above all about connection with the other person, and that the red rope of his Red series stands for bonds such as blood and fate. The profile traces how he learned: first largely on his own with the advice of a mentor, then a workshop with Akechi Denki, lessons with Kanna and, for several years, with Yukimura Haruki, and from 2009 work on the photo shoots of the kinbaku photographer Sugiura Norio. It says he began making kinbaku photographs of his own around 2013.