This is the first book in the new series TOO MUCH: Romantic Geographic Archive. This series will focus on archiving individual memory of place, providing invaluable documentation of a world in a state of flux.
We begin with the work of American photographer Ami Sioux. Ami Sioux Tokyo 35ºN focuses on people and their unique places of importance within the city they inhabit. Creating a poetic account of Tokyo, Ami Sioux Tokyo 35ºN features carefully collected and curated hand-drawn maps and personal narrations from 50 contributors. Among those represented are artists and designers, writers and poets, filmmakers and photographers, living in Tokyo. Over a period of three years, and throughout every season, Ami has journeyed to the places depicted in these maps, taking photographs that express the intimate experience of each person in each of their chosen spaces.
In an exceedingly commercial cityscape, Ami Sioux Tokyo 35ºN illuminates the spaces that are often unseen, those away from the glaring lights of stores, those that are concealed and secluded. The book is privy to places that provide a sanctuary, a place to think, a moment of connection. Taking many different forms and appearing throughout various neighborhoods, these places are rooftops and rivers, tree-lined avenues, bridges and skate spots.
Although this book is about an individual’s connection to a space, it implicitly captures Tokyo at a certain moment in time, providing invaluable documentation of a city constantly reinventing itself.