Ricardo Tokugawa is a Brazilian photographer born in São Paulo and the grandson of Okinawan immigrants (historically known as the Ryukyu Kingdom). His trajectory is marked by the meeting of three cultures — Brazilian, Okinawan, and Japanese — which run through his artistic research and his view on memory, identity, and ancestry.

He holds a degree in Engineering from the Polytechnic School of the University of São Paulo (2009) and a degree in Photography from the Spéos Photographic Institute in Paris (2019). He develops long-term projects that investigate ancestry, family, and the relationship between individual and collective memory. His work proposes that, through recognition and estrangement, we may revisit our own traditions and understand identity as a process in constant transformation.

As a result of this research, he published his first photobook, Utaki, in 2021 with the Brazilian publisher Lovely House. The work received international recognition, including the Lovely Photobook Award and the Best Edition Award at FELIFA Festival (Argentina), and was featured in exhibitions and festivals in France, Spain, Argentina, Greece, Singapore, and Brazil.

In 2023, Utaki became the basis for a solo exhibition at the Museum of Image and Sound of São Paulo (MIS-SP). In the same year, he was nominated for the PIPA Contemporary Art Prize.

In 2022, he took part in the European Training Program in Photographic Legacy Management , promoted by Magnum Photos and dedicated to the conservation, preservation, and enhancement of photographic archives. Since that same year, he has worked as assistant to photographer Gueorgui Pinkhassov , a member of the agency.

---

Contact: ricardo.tokugawa@gmail.com

Instagram: @ricardo.tokugawa