Sayuri Ichida - Ctrl Shift + J

Sayuri Ichida
Ctrl Shift + J

Published by The(M) éditions and Ibasho, October 2025
Size: 21 x 17 cm
50-page leporello
Limited edition of 500 copies

“I constantly wonder where I belong. This series explores the psychological impact of migration and uprooting that have marked my life. The title is inspired by the keyboard shortcut I use to write in Japanese, an indirect reference to my origins.

The series draws on my personal history, that of a family relocated when I started elementary school. Transferred to Niigata Prefecture, over 1,000 km from our hometown, my father took us far from the big city to a rural village. Our strong Kyushu accent, from the southern region, marked us as outsiders. The adjustment was difficult for each of us. These successive moves during my childhood instilled in me an inability to put down roots anywhere, a persistent dissonance with any territory. This fracture and the resulting quest for belonging became the core of my identity.

A few years ago, a DNA test revealed an unexpected British ancestry. This discovery led me, as if by chance, to the homeland of my enigmatic great-great-grandfather. In this unforeseen connection, I find an echo of his experience as a stranger in an unfamiliar land, a reflection of my own self-imposed exile in the United Kingdom.

This series brings together a multitude of subjects: fragments of architecture, an old passport photo of my grandfather, faces of unknown relatives in the family album... Incoherent geometric shapes emerge in the images to amplify this feeling of not belonging, disturbing the gaze with their strangeness.

With Ctrl Shift + J, I invite the viewer to introspect, to confront their own experiences of displacement and the search for a place to be themselves.”

Sayuri Ichida