The Ten Foot Square Hut

• Prize
  Silver in Book/People
• Photographer
  Kengo Noguchi, Japan
• Date of Photograph
  2025
• Website
  http://www.kengonoguchi.com/
• Instagram
  https://www.instagram.com/kengonoguchi
• PDF
  View

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.

Several names are used to refer to these people, such as "homeless" or "park inhabitants." 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.

To live, to inhabit, to sleep. What kind of life and freedom does each human being desire?

Noguchi began making work in photography and film, capturing diverse subjects such as people living outside, backpackers, pilgrims, Tibetan refugees in India, and families in remote villages affected by the April 2015 Nepal earthquake. In this photo book, Noguchi presents the series The Ten Foot Square Hut, which captures people living on the margins of Japanese cities. The piece focuses both on the lives of the hut occupants and the state of the self-built structures made of familiar materials like blue tarp and scrap wood.

Awards 2017 Yoshino Gypsum Art Foundation Fellowship (USA)
2016 Pola Art Foundation Fellowship (India)
2015 BRIGHT PHOTO AWARDS 2015, Grand Prize,
2012 7th Photography 1_WALL Exhibition, Finalist
2012 MEC Award 2012, Finalist