An Uncounted Archive and the Fading Memory of the Road
1,000 items. 30 years. More than 40,000 kilometers driven.
To be honest, I have never stopped to count the exact number of lanterns in my possession; I have been too focused on trying to rescue them. For three decades, I have documented the “Mini-Cho-chin”—small, mass-produced lanterns that once served as the standard visual record of the Japanese traveler.
What began as a personal hobby has evolved into a race against time. The medium itself is on the verge of extinction.
The Catalyst: 1995, Route 42
In the early summer of 1995, I was driving along National Route 42 on the Kii Peninsula. I stopped at Hashikuiiwa (Bridge Pillar Rocks), where 40 massive stone columns stand defiantly in the Pacific.
In a seaside shop, I found a single Mini-Cho-chin. It was cheap—made of plastic and paper, costing only a few hundred yen. But as I held it, I realized it captured something a photograph could not: the vast, horizontal chaos of the rocks distilled into a single, tactile cylinder.
Through bold, minimal brushstrokes, a landmark was turned into a piece of art I could carry in my pocket.
The Quiet Displacement
In 1995, these lanterns were a staple of the landscape. You could find dozens of variations in every fishing village along the coast. Today, I can drive 300 kilometers along that same road and find none.
The “forest of lanterns” that once hung from the ceilings of roadside stations has been cleared away. In their place are generic, mass-produced character goods—identical trinkets sold from one end of the country to the other. When a local lantern shop closes, the specific visual language of that town is lost forever.
The Decision
Thirty years ago, standing in that shop, I had a simple, cold realization: if I didn’t buy this fragile object, this specific moment and place might eventually leave no physical trace at all.
I bought the lantern. I didn’t know then that I would spend the next thirty years looking for the rest.
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