In Infinity Complex Landscape, Japanese photographer Yoshie Itasaka traces Ukraine’s complex relationship with its past. Traveling through Carpathian Ukraine, Odessa, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhzhia, Mariupol, Crimea, and beyond, she captures quiet moments where everyday life and history meet.
Infinity Complex Landscape is a project aimed at re-evaluating the intricate history of the “Land in Between” from a Japanese perspective. With her photo book Itasaka seeks to move beyond certain stereotypes perpetuated by the mass media since the outbreak of the war and to convey the history of the Ukraine region and the reality of the people who live there. The psychological and physical scars left by the war – on both the land and its people – are unlikely to fade in the near future; in fact, they may remain across multiple generations.
Through this photobook, Yoshie Itasaka wishes to convey deep longing for a past that can no longer be reclaimed, steadfast hope for a better future, and the belief that those outside the conflict have a responsibility that cannot be ignored.
The book also includes an essay by Professor Kimitaka Matsuzato, one of the world’s leading scholars of post-Soviet history and politics, and recipient of the Huttenbach Prize awarded by the Association for the Study of Nationalities.
