Utaki

Utaki won the Lovely Dummy Photobook Award '21 in the first edition of Festival Imaginária and is currently sold out.

"The family home is the sacred place that Brazilian photographer Ricardo Tokugawa is interested in investigating, questioning and understanding in his first photobook.

As in fiction, the beginning of a photobook is one of its most important moments, since it sets the tone for everything that follows and captures the reader — or not. In Utaki (2021), this beginning is very well resolved and unfolds with serenity and confidence as it introduces the house and the family, alternating images of both to show how deeply intertwined they are.

There are three interesting movements here: returning — after already having left — to his parents' house in order to create an artistic work; photographing the house, its corners and details, and photographing his parents, grandmother and himself in staged performances for the camera; and enacting a new, metaphorical departure from that place. In the midst of this, he also deals with the illness his father is going through, probably cancer, documenting this difficult process. In this way, the author develops an essay on legacy and memory — his own, that of his family and that of his ancestors."