Ten Disciples

2015 – 2016

I don’t recall exactly when I learnt about the valley where cancer patients gather. It might have been while preparing for my father’s death, or after hearing about his cancer diagnosis, or after the birth of my child. The spa of Tamagawa is nested deep within rural mountains on Honshu Island in northern Japan, the valley filled with radioactive rocks. People fighting cancer throw themselves at the mercy of the suffusing radiation. The scene reminded me of Nirvana, the painting of supreme enlightenment. They say the painting where Buddha lay at the center of his ten great disciples describes the stage where all bonno (earthly desires) dissipate completely.

At the spa, background, occupation, and wealth are of little consequence. Even gender difference seems to fade. I sensed little distress, only determination among those preparing for eternal peace. The river dividing this valley reminds one of the mythological River Styx bordering this world and the next. In the summer, o-bon-odori, a dance commemorating the dead is held across Japan. That’s exactly “the last scene” my grandmother described to me when I was a child. Within the valley, I felt I encountered precisely this Japanese view of life and death, a dance of death, so to speak. It’s what draws me back to the place again and again.

Tsutomu Yamagata is a documentary photographer based in Tokyo. After majoring in Law at Keio University, he worked in business planning in the energy industry, gaining valuable insights into personal communication and social mores. Around this time, he transitioned to photography, quitting his job to develop his practice in Asia and Europe. In 2012, he published Thirteen Orphans, and exhibited in Japan, China, and the United States. In 2013, while attending Review Santa Fe, he was selected to Photolucida’s Critical Mass Top 50 photographers. In 2015, he won the Lensculture Portrait Prize and the Asian Emerging Photography Grant. Last year, he published his expanded photo book Ten Disciples.