Beyond the Mountains
Maki Hayashida
Maki Hayashida was born in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, in 1984. In 2014, she began her professional career as a photographer after her handmade photo book “JAPAN-GO-ROUND,” which she produced at a photo book workshop organized by Reminders Photography Stronghold, received international acclaim. In 2016 she was selected for the Konica Minolta Photo Premio Prize. In 2020 she won the Grand Prix at the Singapore International Photography Festival. Since January 2019, she has been running the Kiyosumi Shirakawa Photo Studio, a photo studio project in the city. She currently lives and works in Tokyo.
© Maki Hayashida - Statement -
Between the 1990s and 2000s, illegal waste dumping in Japan reached its peak. A 1970 amendment to the law has classified waste in Japan into “general waste” and “industrial waste,” with the former being the responsibility of each municipality to dispose of, while the latter became the responsibility of the disposer to properly dispose of through intermediary companies. As a result, large-scale illegal dumping of industrial waste has occurred in mountainous areas all over Japan. Focusing on this problem, Hayashida presents in her work the cases of large-scale illegal dumping throughout Japan, using public documents of local governments, photographic records by residents and the government related to illegal dumping, and showing photo documents of illegal dumping as of 2020-2021.