A Sabō construction in Hongu Tanabe Wakayama Prefecture Kii Peninsula. © Julien Guinand

Two Mountains

Julien Guinand

2015-2018 — Japan

About this series

In the mountains of Kumano and Ashio, in Japan, human activity in the form of intensive forestry and mining operations set in train a series of deadly processes across the region, leading to a blind pursuit of technology at all costs, local responses that included resistance by local residents, and a new awareness of environmental issues. Two Mountains recounts this rich, fragmentary dual story through the photographs, texts and historical documents brought back by Julien Guinand from trips he made between 2015 and 2018. (These are supplemented by a discussion between Jean-François Chevrier, Hidetaka Ishida and Jean-Christophe Valmalette).

Smoke-Tenkawa Wakayama. ©Julien Guinand
Shôzô Tanaka Sano House, Tochigi. ©Julien Guinand
A map of Koyasan, Edo period, Tokyo, October 1977. ©Julien Guinand
A baptist church in Nachikatsuura Wakayama Prefecture Kii Peninsula. © Julien Guinand
Cypress tree Hongu Wakayama Prefecture Kii-Peninsula. © Julien Guinand
Ryuji Niwata posing in his garden beside the same sacred lily of Japan that can be seen in the photograph taken the day after the death of Shōzō Tanaka in September 1913 Sano Tochigi Prefecture. © Julien Guinand
A sabō construction in Nosegawa ; Nara Prefecture, Kii Peninsula, 2017. © Julien Guinand
Fusayo Nishimoto in his vegetable garden Nosegawa Nara Prefecture Kii Peninsula. © Julien Guinand
View of the mountains of the Koyasan region seen from route 371 linking the monastery complex of Koyasan to the north of the peninsula Wakayama Prefecture Kii Peninsula. © Julien Guinand

Photographer: Julien Guinand
Nationality: French
Based in: Lyon, France
Website: http://julienguinand.fr
Instagram: @julienguinand

Julien Guinand (1975, France) studied literature, music, and art. He graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d’Arles. He was a resident at the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto, winner of a national commission from the Cnap (les Regards du grand Paris) and received support from the Fondation des Artistes for a long-term project he is carrying out in Japan. In 2021 he will be in residence at the art center Le Point du Jour in Cherbourg. His work has been the subject of two monographic publications by Éditions 205. The project Two mountains, which concerns the manufacture and destruction of landscape in contemporary Japan, is the subject of a book published by Hatje Cantz Verlag in 2021. Julien Guinand is also the co-founder of the photography school Bloo, which he has directed from 2009 to 2018. He has been teaching at the École nationale supérieure des beaux arts de Lyon since 2005.