Published by L’Artiere, Hitoshi Fugo’s new book is a poetic meditation on impermanence, destruction, and silent transformation.
KAMI brings together two bodies of work taken decades apart: the first in the aftermath of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in Kobe, and the second in and around Fugo’s Tokyo studio, focused on a charred roll of paper salvaged from a burned printing factory.
Rather than documenting devastation, Fugo turns his lens toward what is left behind, fragments of a city stripped bare by nature’s force, and paper nearly reduced to ash. These forms, shaped by fire and time, become quiet symbols of things returning to the earth. “I wanted to photograph the beauty in the shapes of things that were about to return to the soil,” writes Fugo. His work reflects on both the brutality of natural disasters and the scars of man-made destruction, finding an abstract grace in what remains.
The title KAMI, which in Japanese means both “paper” and “god,” captures the spiritual absence Fugo felt after disaster—while elevating the humble material as something sacred in itself.
The book also echoes themes from Fugo’s earlier photobook, Flying Frying Pan (1997), where he explored how photography can erase and reinvent the meaning of everyday objects. In KAMI, that impulse is more urgent and more personal.
Printed in a limited edition of 500 copies, KAMI is produced in offset duotone with a visible binding, softcover with flaps.
The book will be officially launched at Paris Photo 2025
