Daisuke Yokota: Taratine

Taratine, is the first US monograph by acclaimed Japanese photographer Daisuke Yokota. Comprised of photographs and a moving essay written by Yokota, Taratine is his most personal work to date.  

Taratine combines two bodies of new work-one from a road trip to Tohoku in 2007, and a second taken in Tokyo in 2014. Inspiration came by Yokota stumbling upon an ancient ginkgo tree in the Aomori prefecture. Called "Taratine", this tree has been worshipped by generations of women for its fertility-enhancing properties.  Yokota was reminded both of the Tohoku region's traditional-and lingering-connection to the awe of natural spirits and of memories from his own childhood.

As Marc Feustel observes in the afterword, "Unlike its predecessors, Taratine is driven by a more ambiguous and slippery set of emotions and sensations. A need for maternal love evolves into lust and desire. As much a book about sounds and smells as one of images-Taratine heightens all the senses as it breathes fresh air into a grand Japanese tradition."