TAMIKO NISHIMURA (西村多美子, Nishimura Tamiko, born in Tokyo, 1948) graduated from Tokyo College of Photography (now Tokyo Visual Arts) in 1969. Her graduation work was a photography series of Jōkyō Gekijo (Situation Theatre), forefront of the underground theater movement led by Jūrō Kara. After her graduation, she met Daido Moriyama, Kōji Taki and Takuma Nakahira, three highly influential members of the Provoke movement. She assisted them in the darkroom from 1969 and 1970, while she continued her personal shooting on her travels. In 1973, Nishimura made her debut through the first publication Shikishima, published by Tokyo Photography College, showcasing her photographs taken from 1969 to 1972 on her journeys around Japan including Hokkaidō, Tōhoku, Hokuriku, Kantō, Kansai and Chūgoku regions. From the 1980s the artist began to travel to Southeast Asia and Europe, expanding her subject matter.
Major publications include Shikishima (Tokyo Photography College, 1973. Reprinted by Zen Foto Gallery in 2014), vent calmoso (Sokyu-sha, 2005), Existence 1968-69 (graficamag, 2011), Eternal Chase (graficamag, 2012), Kittenish... (Zen Foto Gallery, 2015), My Journey (Zen Foto Gallery, 2018) and Voyage (Zen Foto Gallery, 2019), My Journey II. 1968–1989 (Zen Foto Gallery, 2019), and My Journey III. 1993-2022 (Zen Foto Gallery, 2022). Her works are included in the collection of M+ museum (Hong Kong).
Her work will be featured in the upcoming publication, I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now, published with Aperture, and with an accompanying exhibition premiering in this year’s Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles, France, opening July 1, 2024.