Clouds foaming over mountain Osaka Japan
Boy swimming in creek Wakayama Japan
Boy looking up tree looking for bus at shrine Wakayama Japan
Girl wearing hat walking through grass field Osaka Japan
Sun from underwater view Osaka Japan
Boy Swimming Wakayama Japan
Boy searching for bugs in grass field, Okayama Japan
Boy sitting door way waiting for rain to stop Wakayama Japan
Three boys going home walking through rice field Wakayama Japan
Boy catching dragon flies near rice field Wakayama, Japan
Summer Homework
This series was started after I had lived in the United States for 10 years. Every time I got homesick and missed my home country, I daydreamed of the beautiful landscapes that surrounded me as I grew up in Japan. Yet every time I went back to visit my family and friends, I came back disappointed in not finding those beautiful landscapes that I had imagined. Then I started to pay more attention to how I felt and what I thought when I daydreamed and started to realize that it was not just the landscape I remembered, but also how I felt when I was growing up. It was more of the childhood memories when I had no obligations or responsibilities and felt so free. I set out to try to record the feelings I had during my summers growing up in Japan. This work is about that process.
Keiji Iwai