{"id":1210,"date":"2025-03-18T14:56:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T18:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/living.okinawa.halekulani.com\/?p=1210"},"modified":"2025-03-18T19:18:42","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T23:18:42","slug":"%e5%86%99%e3%81%97%e5%87%ba%e3%81%95%e3%82%8c%e3%82%8b%e7%9c%9f%e5%ae%9f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/living.okinawa.halekulani.com\/en\/%e5%86%99%e3%81%97%e5%87%ba%e3%81%95%e3%82%8c%e3%82%8b%e7%9c%9f%e5%ae%9f\/","title":{"rendered":"Portraits of Place"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A heavy summer rain batters my umbrella as I wait for artist Moeco Yamazaki outside the Koishikawa Botanical Garden in Tokyo\u2019s Bunky\u014d ward. We\u2019ve decided to meet here, the oldest botanical garden in Japan and one of the oldest in the world, to discuss the journey that brought her from Tokyo\u2019s concrete maze to the pastoral countryside of Okinawa. Despite the hidden splendor of this urban oasis, it is a pale substitute for the wilderness of Yonaguni, the remote Okinawan island where Yamazaki\u2019s artistic practice took root and that continues to act as her muse, studio, and second home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yamazaki arrives wearing a knitted black dress and her hair in a long braid. We head into the botanical garden, handing our tickets to the women in the entrance booth, who inform us that we have the entire 160,000 square meters of the garden to ourselves. Benefits of a typhoon-induced downpour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the asphalt path to the greenhouse, we pass banana trees and sotetsu plants, both common in rural Yonaguni, less so in the middle of the world\u2019s biggest metropolis. We enter the greenhouse to escape the rain, and I start by asking Yamazaki if she considers herself more of a photographer or an artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a long, thoughtful pause, she explains that she is no longer sure which of her chosen mediums is driving her practice, analog photography or the traditional paper she creates to print the images on. \u201cI often feel like I am making photographs simply to have something to put on to the paper,\u201d she says, unwinding and re-braiding her hair, now damp from the rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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