Naoya Hatakeyama is a photographer born in Iwate Prefecture in 1958. Working with subjects such as quarries, mines, urban development, and post-disaster landscapes, he has consistently examined the relationship between human activity and landscape. He has received wide recognition in Japan and abroad, including the Kimura Ihei Photography Award, and is known as one of Japan’s leading photographers.
Terrils is a photobook of coal spoil heaps, known as terrils, found in northern Belgium and northern France. Taking these artificial mountains created through mining as its subject, the work records the process by which traces of industrial activity are transformed into landscape.
These vast landforms, left behind even after the mines have closed, appear as distinctive landscapes where nature and the man-made, past and present, intersect. The book offers a view into Hatakeyama’s long-standing practice of engaging with industrial landscapes.
Terrils Naoya Hatakeyama Taka Ishii Gallery / Editions Light Motiv, 2011 252 × 302 × 13 mm Age-appropriate wear
