IN NISHINARI WARD (Japan, 2005-ongoing)
Only three metro stations for the chic business district of Japan’s second city, Osaka, lie in the Kamagasaki district. Although twenty thousand people live there, the district is not to be found on any city maps. It is a slum and a blot on Japanese society. Kamagasaki is largely populated by men over the age of 55, without homes, jobs or dignity, abandoned by their families, victims of alcoholism, and prey for organised crime and Christian charitable organisations. The pride of the Japanese reconstruction and urbanisation of yore pines away on less than a square kilometre, while the rest of the city roars ahead in a hectic industrial, capitalistic and technologically advanced consumerism.
