整備されていない野湯にフォーカスされた山谷佑介の3年ぶりの写真集「ONSEN I」

「ONSEN I 」は、山谷佑介による温泉をテーマにした現在進行形のプロジェクトの新作です。
　野湯（のゆ、やとう）と呼ばれる自然の中に自噴する整備されていない温泉巡りは、山谷がカメラを手にして間もない15年程前から始まり、友人や家族、時にはSNSやZINEで希望者を募り現在も続いています。
　湯や水辺の場を中心にした人々のコミュニケーションは『日本書紀』や『万葉集』にも記述されており、山谷も温泉での撮影を続けていくうちに、原始の時代に耳を傾け、空間を超えて異なる惑星へと思いを馳せるような視点になってきたといいます。それら一連の実践は、時間を超えて変わらずに存在する自然や人間の姿を記録する撮影行為だけにとどまらず、ありのままの風景に身体を介在させて、人間と世界そのものを捉え直そうとする試みとも言えます。

本書はflotsam booksが出版した初めての写真集です。
デザインはflotsam booksのロゴなどを手掛けた山田悠太朗の手によるもので、表紙は山田が実際に山谷の野湯行きに同行し、湧き出る温泉や硫黄を直接紙に写し取ることで生まれた模様をシルクスクリーンと特殊加工で忠実に再現しています。

flotsam books is pleased to announce the availability of "ONSEN I", a new photo book by photographer Yusuke Yamatani. This is the first publication by flotsam books and Yamatani's first book in three years.

"ONSEN I" is a project on the hot springs theme that is still ongoing by Yusuke Yamatani. The Unmaintained or hidden site hot springs are called "No-yu" or "Yatou" in Japanese. Yusuke Yamatani started photographs about 15 years ago and began the project of those hot spring hopping and taking pictures simultaneously, so his photographic journey continues today. He is gathering people who want to join, friends and family, sometimes through SNS and even zines. The communication of people around hot springs or waterside as central places are described in "Nihon Shoki(Chronicles of Japan) and "Manyoshu(Anthology of Myriad Leaves)", and as Yamatani continued to photograph at hot springs, he has become to listen primitive times which made him a view of imagining different planets beyond space. The practices related to the project are not limited to the act of photographing nature and human beings that exist unchanged over time, but can also be described as an attempt to recapture the human being and the world itself through the intervention of the body in the landscape as it is.

The cover is designed by Yutaro Yamada, who also created the logo for flotsam books, and made the patterns on the cover were faithfully reproduced by silkscreening and special processing, which were designed by directly capturing with Yamatani the gushing hot springs and sulfur on paper.

― 出版社説明文より