We are pleased to announce that joining PILAA’s creative leg of the business, is the acclaimed London based Japanese photographer, Akiko Takizawa. Takizawa’s body of work has taken on many themes, which include: home, family, a sense of loss, displacement, death and the afterlife, and what it means to live in the modern world. The majority of her work also focuses on her home country, where Japanese culture and traditions feature strongly.

Takizawa’s recent craftswomanship also centers around the 150-year-old Collotype printing process, which originated in France, but has now been all but discontinued on a worldwide level. In 2014 she received the prestigious 2014 Prix HSBC pour la Photographie and has continued to show nationally and internationally.

As part of the PILAA team, she will be lending her craft to our EDI campaigns. In particular she takes part in advocacy work in helping to break the cycle of homelessness, challenging violence towards women and girls, and unpacking interconnected forms of oppression and social justice work. As she told us, it’s because I’ve often felt excluded, that I’ve made work with the desire to belong.