230x257x18 mm
softcover, slipcase, textes in English and Japanese

Osorezan is a place in the Northern-most part of Honshu, Japan's main island. The name literally translates to 'The Mountain of Fear', and surrounding it, there are areas actually called "Hell" and "Lake of Blood". It is a place rich in mythology and folklore meaning, and said to be the gate to the underworld. Puddles of strangely coloured liquids bubble with toxic gases, shallow streams of yellow water line the grey footpaths, and all throughout the year, the sting of sulphuric acid and an eerie silence lie over the place. Everyone who does must cross the local Sanzu river, and children who die before their parents are condemned to build cairns here for eternity.

The photos in Issei Suda's book The Journey to Osorezan are not concerned primarily with Nature but with people and the traces they leave in the world - both in the physical and the psychological sense. In the afterword to the book, Suda explains the circumstances in which the photos were taken in the early 1970s. Originally led towards Osorezan out of naive, youthful curiosity, the place has during his many visits gained a deeper - maybe spiritual - meaning for him.

Issei Suda says my perception of Osorezan completely changed after visiting the mountain. "It was not the dreadful place of my imagination. I had heard of hell, but only learned of heaven when I got there....There is a saying in Tohoku: "When you die you go to the mountains." When I heard this it felt as if my gloomy preconception of the words "the home of the dead" was washed away. Here was tranquility, ideal to comfort people who are approaching the end of life."