Tate Photography: Lieko Shiga

'Photography is not quite the future or past or present, it is an eternal moment.'

Lieko Shiga makes intimate portraits, set among mystical landscapes and interiors, integrating her personal experiences with grander mythologies into surreal and fantastical images. Without using digital retouching, she evokes the twilight zone between dream and reality.

This volume focuses on her series RASEN KAIGAN (Spiral Coast) 2008–12, photographs of the village of Kitakama in Japan before and after the devastating 2011 tsunami, capturing the spirit and history of the place and its people.

Shiga's work is represented in museum collections around the world. In 2012, she won the Higashikawa Prize for new artists, and in 2021 she received the Tokyo Contemporary Art Award.



The Tate Photography Series is a celebration of photography by artists in the Tate collection, presenting some of the most significant photographers in the world today. Each book focuses on an individual photographer and includes a specially selected sequence of images and an introduction by a Tate curator, alongside a conversation about each photographer's practice.

The unifying theme for Series Two is Ecology and Environment, featuring photographers who examine aspects of our relationship with the natural world, environment and changing climate.