Nagashima Yurie 長島有里枝 (1973- ) Tokyo.

Along with Hiromix, one of Japan's best-known young women photographers.

Education Graduated Musashino Art Univ. in 1995, majoring in visual communication design. Graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in May 1999 with an MFA degree in photography.

Career While still in college, won the Parco Award at the Urbanart #2 contest in 1993 for her nude family portraits which drew much attention.

In 1997, she moved to the US to study and to escape the media attention. Graduated from the California Institute of the Arts in May 1999 with an MFA degree in photography. After living in the US for three years, she returned to Japan to work as a photographer.

Exhibited photos of her live-in boyfriend (whom she later married) for the Private Room II exhibition at Art Tower Mito (Ibaraki Pref.) in spring 1999. In Dec. 2000, exhibited Pastime Paradise (also the title of her latest photo book) at SCAI The Bathhouse in Tokyo.

From the early 1990s, many young Japanese girls started to take up photography. Photography schools saw large female enrollments. By the mid-'90s, a few stars from this female generation appeared, namely NAGASHIMA Yurie and HIROMIX.

Nagashima is considered to be the first "girl photographer" to spearhead the photography boom among young girls from the mid-1990s. Her nude self portraits brought much media attention, something which she had a hard time handling. A slew of other copycat young girls started taking nude self-portraits as well.

Published a nude self-portrait photo book called Yurie Nagashima in 1995. A second photo book, Empty White Room, was published later in the same year. It showed pictures of friends. A third photo book, Kazoku (Family), published in 1998, was like a family album of photos of her family.

Later the excellent retrospective Pastime Paradise was published in Dec. 2000. It showed all her major work over the years including her famous family nudes. The book also won her the 26th Kimura Ihee Award (jointly with HIROMIX and NINAGAWA Mika) for 2000. (2001.3.21)

Awards 26th KIMURA Ihee Award, 2000.

Web page: http://www.scaithebathhouse.com/en/artists/yurie_nagashima/biography/

Book reviews

Pastime Paradise
Yurie Nagashima
Family

not six

By: NAGASHIMA Yurie 長島有里枝

Published: 2004-12-03

Publisher: Switch Publishing

ISBN: 4884180143

Price in Japan: Y2,940

Qualities: B5 landscape, 160 pp., hard cover, color photos

Language: Japanese

The book cover shows her husband (who she later divorced) with a hard-on. It is an intimate collection of photos of her husband. For her, after publishing books of photos of herself, her friends, and her family, it is a natural next step.

The pictures are very graphic. Pictures that only a wife could take. There is some censoring, otherwise it would be banned in Japan. It is extremely unusual (or perhaps it's the first time) to see a photo book like this where the wife photographs the husband. Usually it's the other way around. It serves as a great example for wives to photograph their husbands. But I would never allow my wife to photograph me like that...

Written by Philbert Ono