写真家 東松照明が魅せられた、長崎の中の中国文化

「町歩き」より受け止めていく、東シナ海を巡る歴史の厚み

抄録

Shomei Tomatsu is a well-known photographer who captured the social changes of post-war Japan for more than half a century. In particular, since he was shocked at the wounds of atomic bomb victims of Nagasaki in the early 1960s, he had kept on saving the details of the lives and deaths of the survivors over several decades, using “group-photographs (gun-shashin) ”, which was his original photographic method. In his later years, he moved to Nagasaki and developed his perspective based on the long history of the place, roaming the streets day after day. It is through this shooting procedure that he always had a vivid sense of reality. In the previous study, the authors clarified that he gradually observed individuals in their everyday lives, who lived with the memories of the unforgettable atomic bomb by applying a new methodology, which we devised to grasp the photographer’s spiraling thoughts and emotions reflected in his practical actions. By contrast, previous research has emphasized that he photographed the horrors of atomic bombs. Especially, it is significant to note that the hardships of the survivors were identified with the persecution of Christians in the pre-modern period. The trouble is, however, that this perspective trivialized the long and convoluted history of Nagasaki since opening the port in the late 16th century, which he gradually perceived as fascinating living in the town. Therefore, the aim of this study is to describe the layered history of Nagasaki he tried to express in his life by analyzing the “group-photographs ” and other materials. Generally speaking, the historical connections between Nagasaki and other countries were represented by Dejima Dutch Trading Post and Tojin-Yashiki in the Edo period. However, before the Tokugawa shogunate started to dominate the foreign relations, the islands of Japan were melting pots of many ethnic groups coming from beyond the sea. Most importantly, Nagasaki also preserved the strong ties with other Asian countries rather than European ones. Considered in this light, his earlier works, significantly enough, focused on the influence of China as well as the history of suppression of Christians, although it was just expressed by a few photographs of historical artifacts. On the other hand, since the beginning of his new life in Nagasaki, he had captured the individuals who had inherited their ways of lives, including the traditional festivals and the commemorations of their ancestors, both of which traced back to the Edo period. Furthermore, in the late 2000s, just before the end of his life in Okinawa, he casted a gentle eye toward the lives of the street where numerous people from a diverse range of backgrounds had walked down for centuries. It is noteworthy that he realized the historical ties among Nagasaki, Okinawa and Fujian surrounding the East China Sea, based on his own past experience that he journeyed from Okinawa to the Southeast Asia. From this, it follows that the intricate history of Nagasaki was deeply connected with the hardships of Ryukyuan people which he witnessed in Okinawa around the early 1970s.