Ai Iwane - Coho Come Home

Ai Iwane
Coho Come Home

Published by Bookshop M, 2024
Size: 16.8 x 23.7 cm
32 pages
Soft cover
Language: English, Japanese

Ai Iwane's photobook "Coho Come Home" chronicles life in Petrolia, California, a small community founded by children near the Mattole River. Iwane, who first visited Petrolia in 1991, focuses on the residents' relationship with coho salmon: The Mattole Valley was one of the first places in the United States where grassroots activism helped restore native salmon populations.

“In the fall of 2020, the Bear River Tribe revitalized the traditional salmon ceremony for the first time in 118 years.
As a teenager when I went to study in the United States in 1991, I knew nothing about the valley's inhabitants' ongoing efforts to welcome back salmon, but 30 years later, I had the opportunity to have another wonderful encounter with the Mattole.

- excerpt from Ai Iwane's afterword