I have just returned from a workshop trip from São Paulo, Brazil, a vertiginous and bustling city. My experience in returning from the city has been marked by an extended rumination on my experiences there. I am still processing the city, its architecture, and its artists whom I was very fortunate to meet in abundance. There is no easy way to contextualize São Paulo. It is a massive city, and its citizens come from a very diverse background. São Paulo, during the 19th and 20th centuries, was a destination for Italians, Japanese, Jewish, and Portuguese populations. The extensive slave trade and colonial experiences of the city’s African population cannot be undervalued in this exchange of how culture proliferates within the city, and more broadly, the country’s identity. This is what, despite the challenges of historical proximity to such topics, makes the São Paulo of today diverse and exceedingly rich in its cultural life.

During my visit to São Paulo, I had the opportunity to interview and become acquainted with many of the city’s photography enthusiasts, artists, curators, and publishers. I have taken notes, collected books, and initiated a series of meditations on my time there, primarily through the photobook community. I will be covering several of those titles here over the following months in an attempt to expose some of what I found. There will also be a series of podcasts through Nearest Truth in which the recorded conversations will be made available. Notably, Gui Marcondes extended an invitation to me to the workshop in São Paulo. Gui is a São Paulo native, but has also spent much of his time in New York. Nearest Truth Editions published his book, I Know I Exist Because You Imagine Me, in 2023, and his new book Ossada, was recently published by Up-and-Coming publishers Selo Turvo, a publisher that I had a great experience working with alongside, Panc Press, who helped coordinate our printed book from the São Paulo Syntax workshop. I mention all this as a backdrop for a series of books that I will be reviewing for American Suburb X over the next weeks and months as I digest and disseminate my experiences.

Ricardo Tokugawa studied engineering and later photography in France, a country that he visits often and feels a deep affinity with. Like many São Paulo citizens, Tokugawa’s mixed ancestry has created questions of identity. As a São Paulo native, questions remain about how his Okinawan (which he distinguishes from being solely Japanese) and Brazilian roots inform his sense of identity. This comes through in his work. I was fortunate to sit and speak with Ricardo about his book, Utaki, published in 2021 by Brazilian publisher Lovely House, a photobook store and all-around supporter of photobooks. Without prior knowledge of the book, Ricardo expanded on its purpose as a means of discovering his family life and his cultural ties to Okinawa and Japan through the domestic environment of pandemic-ridden São Paulo life. The title Utaki refers to a sacred place, grove, or mountain, but can also refer to a shrine, altar, or spiritual place of intention. Throughout the book, Tokugawa documents his life at his parents’ home throughout the pandemic, a time when his father also became ill with cancer. The book is a study of family, but also a growing bond between the adult Ricardo and his ageing parents, whom he enlists as protagonists for his book.

Drawing on several Japanese and Okinawan customs of portraiture, particularly the tradition of “i-ei” portraiture. These are photographic images of those who have passed, used within family photographs presented by the living in an attempt at inclusion. I have written about these portraits previously concerning Masahisa Fukase’s 2019 book Family, published by MACK. It is a tradition that includes mourning and remembrance, and is a traditional custom that also references photography itself. In speaking with Ricardo, we briefly discussed Fukase’s impact on his project, in similar images found in the Utaki book. Continuing through the book, the pictures of Ricardo’s father, his own self-portraits, and numerous photos of hands undergird the clean sequence of the book, suggesting a moving type of memento. The book also features an obtuse kind of humor. Ricardo’s father becomes part of the tableau, and a healthy exchange between father and son ensues. However, Ricardo admits that his father’s opinion of art photography is not always readily embraced. What makes this last statement crucial is that despite that, he gives in to the theater of Ricardo’s investigation. The father’s response is at times comically stiff, yet still, however seemingly dispassioned, a nod to his son, no matter his concern with photography. His mother also makes an appearance, but his father becomes the mainstay for the experience due to his illness.

What I find alluring about the book is that it concentrates on the cultural artifacts, the shrines, and the “i-ei” portraits, but becomes more of an investigation into the politics and social life of contemporary Brazilian families who try to navigate the diverse terrain of cities like São Paulo, and whose successive generations grapple, no matter where their parents and grandparents come from with its rich cultural weave. Utaki presents as a methodically sequenced book, rich in the implications of health, death, and the generational transcendence of antecedent culture. The photographs are playful, yet they draw from a form of minimal restraint that significantly contributes to the overall feeling of order and cleanliness. I should point out that Ricardo’s father is alive and well. In this, it is worth thinking of the precarious nature of those confusing and anxious times. Of the books I picked up in Brazil, Utaki, Ossada, and Felipe Russo’s books stand out as exceptionally well-considered in their sequencing and editing. I highly recommend Utaki and a broader investigation into the work of Ricardo Tokugawa.