Issue:

March 2026 | Exhibition

Photography by Kuwabara Shisei

January Photo Exhibition:  Feb 28 - March 27

  • Minamata
  • South Korea

This year marks two significant anniversaries in Japan. It is 70 years since the Minamata disaster in Kumamoto, and 60 years since the restoration of diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea. This month, we are displaying images by veteran photojournalist Kawabara Shisei, best known for his depiction of the effects of mercury poisoning on people in and near Minamata, as well as his timely work on South Korean and North Korean upheavals.

The Minamata disaster was a severe, long-term environmental poisoning event that was first recognized in 1956. It had been caused by the Chisso Corporation’s chemical factory releasing methylmercury into Minamata Bay from as early as 1950. The mercury bioaccumulated in seafood, causing more than 2,000 human cases of severe neurological damage, congenital disabilities, and death. It became known as "dancing cat fever" due to unusual behavior in cats, and deformities in fish, before being recognized as a human neurological disease.

Kuwabara Shisei

Kuwabara started reporting on Minamata in early 1960 and published his works in a solo exhibition in 1962 that won him the newcomer’s award of the Japan Photo Critics Association. American photographer Eugene Smith gained worldwide attention in 1975 when his photographs, MINAMATA, were published in LIFE magazine. However, it is reported that Kuwabara, who had photographed the area earlier, had made a significant impact on Smith.

Recognised for over 50 years of Minamata coverage, Kuwabara received the Domon Ken Award in 2014. Over the years, he has also documented the South Korean democratization movement, life in North Korea, the Vietnam War, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. While Kuwabara's work will be exhibited in the Eugene Smith exhibition at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum this spring, the FCCJ has gathered works by Kuwabara – who celebrates his 90th birthday this autumn – focusing on Minamata, South Korea, and North Korea, ahead of that exhibition.

Peter Lyon, chair of the Exhibition Committee