野口健吾『庵の人々』

野口健吾『庵の人々』 Book Design：町口景発行：赤々舎 Size：H250mm x W260mm Page：136 pages Binding：Hardcover Published in April 2025 ISBN：978-4-86541-177-5	¥ 3,500＋tax 国内送料無料！【国内／Domestic Shipping】お支払い方法は、PayPal、PayPay、Paidy 銀行振込、郵便振替、クレジットカード支払いよりお選び頂けます。【海外／International Shipping】＊ Please choose your area from the two below

About Book

住まうこと、生きること。路上や河辺で暮らす人々とその栖すみか 。

10代の頃より、安宿泊まりや野宿をしながら日本各地を旅していた写真家・野口健吾は、都市や地方の路上での出会いを重ねながら、人々と語り合い、カメラを向けてきた。
都市のすき間、川辺のほとり。誰のものだとも言い難いその風景の片隅に、ブリコラージュのように形作られた小さな栖すみかがある。公共や自由、世間体や常識が換骨奪胎されたそのような場所で、独自の小屋やブルーシート、テントを結んでいる人々は、どう生き、暮らしているのか──。いつしか野口は、彼らの住む場所を繰り返し訪ねるようになり、彼らをホームレスでも、路上生活者でもなく「庵の人々」と呼ぶようになった。
消費社会の生活廃品から拾い集められた調度品。廃材などで組まれた屋根や柱。一見、即興的に見える構築物にも、数年にわたり保たれてきた配置や、その人なりの秩序、最適化の痕跡がある。経済的な理由でそこにいる人もいれば、自ら選びとるようにその暮らしを続けている人もいる。住まうことの表情が多種多様に見えてくる。一方で、川の流れが常にかたちを変えるように、その人々の暮らしもまた常にかたちを変え、流転する。次に訪れたとき、またそこに庵と人々が同じようにあるとは限らない。
本書には、庵の内部は写されていない。外観と居住者の佇まいだけが写されている。うつろいゆく時の河辺で約10年にわたって写され、築かれた、「住まい」と「存在」が限りなく近づいた肖像写真集。

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"路上や河辺で暮らす人々とその栖。彼らの多様な個性や生活空間に驚き、時おり訪ねては世間話をして写真を撮った。生きる、住む、寝る。人間一人ひとりが望む生活や自由とは何か。何気ない日常でふと立ち止まり、様々な思いが浮かんでは消えていく。" ── あとがきより抜粋

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The Ten Foot Square Hut

Kengo Noguchi

These are the people who live in dwellings on the streets and by the riversides.
I was amazed by the diversity of their personalities and living spaces,
and visited from time to time to make small talk and photograph them.

To live, to inhabit, to sleep. What kind of life and freedom does each human being desire?
In the ordinary course of daily life, I stop to think about it. Various thoughts come to mind and then disappear.

Starting around my late teens, I would tuck my camera into a backpack and travel with a free spirit through rural areas. I would look for cheap hotels to stay at, or pitch my tent outside at campgrounds, all while taking photographs along the way.

However, when I was in Tokyo, I wandered around the city indulging in the pleasures of urban life. I sometimes found myself drinking with people I came across who were houseless and living on the streets, and captured them in photographs as I listened to their bitter and sweet stories from the past.

During my rural travels with no plans on where I would sleep each night, and while roaming aimlessly through city streets, I began to wonder how people managed to live by riverbanks and in parks inside of makeshift huts, blue tarpaulin sheets, and tents. What sort of lives did they lead? I decided to visit them and ask about it.

Most of them said they made a living collecting aluminum cans and other things that had been thrown away, while improvising to make do with the bare necessities of life. It's not difficult to imagine that some people live this way out of economic necessity. But there are also many people who embrace this way of life out of personal preference. Great diversity is to be found in the human narratives that unfold within living spaces resource- fully fashioned out of still functional discarded items that are the product of this coun- try's system of mass consumption and disposal.

Several names are used to refer to these people, such as "homeless" or "park inhabit- ants." But as I continued to talk with and photograph these people, I came to feel that none of those names were suitable. Each person had their own living environment in a makeshift hut or temporary dwelling, so I began referring to them as iori* people.

*The Japanese word iori signifies the austere temporary dwelling of a recluse or hermit.

Whenever I visited iori people, I had the sensation of wandering into an imaginary space, something like an air pocket removed from the clamor of the city, where I could remember things forgotten amid the busyness of daily life. I became aware of biases held by society and in my own thinking regarding freedom, what should be accessible or avail- able to the general public, conformity to social norms, and what constitutes common sense. With this awareness, I felt my perspective on the fabric of everyday life undergo a gradual shift.

From ancient times, people have sought out ascetics in the desire to learn their beliefs and philosophies and to discover the ultimate meaning of human existence.

"The flow of a river's water never ceases and the water flowing by is never the same." (Kamo no Chomei, Hojoki)

On repeated visits, I might find an iori dweller doing well as usual and nothing we talked about was particularly different from our previous conversations. Conversely, a dwelling might have been repaired and enlarged, had someone else living there, or might even be gone without a trace, destroyed by some disaster or construction work. The flow of time is not consistent. A temporary dwelling itself can be likened to the unknown fu- ture and life not yet experienced.

Within distant and eternal spacetime, they become memories and eras endlessly cycled and repeated.

Extracted from the afterword by Kengo Noguchi