Seiya Bowen - Nadachi

“Each summer for over a decade, I returned to my childhood home in Japan. With every visit, the town faded away, slowly being replaced by a new infrastructure of bullet trains and fast-speed freeways.” In Nadachi, Seiya Bowen examines the socio-economic transformation of rural Japan by bearing witness to the changes, both grand and small, in the area of Nadachi where his grandparents lived. As resources and employment flow into Japan’s metropolitan centers, the countryside is quietly being abandoned, leaving its remaining residents to make do with what’s left behind. As a Japanese American, Bowen imbues these scenes with a personal grief as well, a sadness heard in the silence of an empty classroom and abandoned playground. As his grandparents’ world gradually disappears in front of his camera lens, so does the photographer’s ability to reclaim his own identity in the rituals and culture of the area.