Utaki
Brésil/France
2026
Ricardo Tokugawa is the product of immigration: Brazilian, third generation of Okinawan descent, he carries within him a tapestry of cultures—Brazil, Okinawa, and Japan. His work explores family identity, ancestry, and home, concepts that are intimately linked in these three worlds. For him, photography is not about obtaining an image, but about experiencing the process between the idea and the final image. Through recognition and shifts, he invites us to revisit our own ever-changing
questions of identity and tradition.
By confronting models, he suggests that tradition is an invention and questions the performativity of existence by revealing its rites of passage. Utaki, in Okinawan, refers to a sacred place. Through his meticulously constructed images, he invites us to question: is the sacred immutable? And where is the boundary between reality and fiction?
Portfolio
About the artist
Born in 1984 in São Paulo, Brazil, Ricardo Tokugawa lives and works in the Paris region. He is the grandson of immigrants from Okinawa. His work explores his family, his ancestry, and the search for personal confrontation. Winner of the Lovely Prize (Brazil) and FELIFA (Argentina), he published Utaki in 2021 and exhibited at the Museum of Image and Sound in São Paulo in 2023.