(this page was last updated in August 2023)
São Paulo, Brazil, 1984
Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil
PIPA Prize 2023 nominee
Ricardo Tokugawa was born in São Paulo, is a grandson of immigrants from Okinawa (islands south of Japan) and has in his path a mixture of three cultures: Brazilian, Okinawan and Japanese. He has a degree in Engineering and Photography and his artistic work contemplates the search for a personal confrontation, a look at his ancestry and a process of investigation of the family and the house. In his work, he proposes that through recognitions and estrangements we can look at our own identity issues and traditions, which do not cease to move and renew. As a result of this research, in 2021 he published his first photobook, “Utaki”, by the Brazilian publisher Lovely House.
He has held group exhibitions in Brazil and France, and among the awards received are the Best Edition Award | FELIFA Festival, Argentina (2021) and the Lovely Award | Imaginaria Festival, Brazil (2021). In 2020, he was one of the photographers participating in “Arte na Fotografia” TV show of “Arte1” Brazilian broadcast, and in 2022 he participated together with Magnum Photos Paris agency in the European Union program in photographic legacy management and provided assistance to the photographer Gueorgui Pinkhassov, member of the same agency.
Website: www.ricardotokugawa.com
Video produced by Do Rio Filmes exclusively for PIPA 2023:
