The photobook project Aabuku (2024) by Japanese artist Moe Suzuki continues her work on visual narratives of memory and perception, and how they can shift in response to illness, family relationships, or urban transformation. This exploration began with her 2020 work Sokohi, in which she depicted the world as seen by her father, who suffers from glaucoma. In Aabuku, Suzuki turns her focus from personal experience to an environmental impact—the invisible contamination caused by PFAS, or “forever chemicals”, which leaked from U.S. military bases on Okinawa.

It took her three years to conduct research and create a multilayered visual structure, combining documentary material, testimonies of local residents, district maps, archival images, and scientific data. The result is a project that invites viewers to reflect not only on the impact of environmental pollution but also on the systems of concealment and inaccessibility surrounding it. The source of contamination is hidden behind the fences of military infrastructure, while the substance itself is imperceptible to the naked eye. Water, air, and vegetation become silent carriers of destruction—difficult to detect yet profoundly damaging.

Aabuku weaves a dense web of visual metaphors to convey the psychological and physical burden of pollution. In photographs taken by the artist on site, we encounter ordinary objects in which danger leaves no visible mark. Suzuki encourages viewers to pay close attention to everyday images—not simply to see the surface of things, but to notice what remains unseen, what slowly corrodes them from within. Through this approach, Suzuki moves beyond documentation to explore photography’s potential ability to render the invisible visible. She uses the photobook as a space of critical observation, where viewers are invited to consider the blurred boundaries between the personal and the political.

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