Hakodate

Beskrivning

For years I’ve returned to Hakodate, Japan, to photograph. I discovered this city by chance when a friend who had left Tokyo moved back north. Most of his generation abandon the smaller cities for better opportunities elsewhere. Hakodate shows the scars of depopulation: whole blocks abandoned in its center, and streets hauntingly empty save for passing cars or trams. By day it feels grey, worn down. But at dusk, when street lamps, neon, and traffic lights begin to glow, the city transforms. In that magical light, in the shadows between houses, life seems to persist; quiet, spiritual, almost fairytale-like.