City of Roses - Sly Morikawa

“To love is to grieve, to grieve is to have loved. City of Roses is a reflection on my grief, but also a love letter to my mother, to my family, to my ancestors, and to the city of Fukuyama.

At the end of World War II, eighty percent of the city area was destroyed from air raids with many lives lost. In 1956, in an effort to rebuild, recover, and heal their hearts, the people of Fukuyama planted 1,000 roses, beginning the city’s history of “Fukuyama, the City of Roses”. Fukuyama later became the “City of One Million Roses” in 2016. The people now have an expression, “rose mind” which represents kindness, compassion, and togetherness.

I lost both of my grandparents in 2021 in the height of Japan’s summer, and with that I lost parts of myself too. Inspired by Masahisa Fukase’s ‘Solitude of Ravens’ series, I became fixated on the idea of photographing the roses in my mother’s hometown while I reflected on my grief. Photography has always been a way for me to step outside of myself; in this case it gave me the purpose and energy I needed when I was making these return trips to Fukuyama, rather than wallowing in the sadness and nostalgia that continues to haunt me today.

This book is as much about love and grief as it is the “City of Roses”, because through this process I’ve found the beauty in grief, and I’ve found grief, and love, and memory, and joy in one million roses. I’ve learned that grief will never leave us when we hold so much love in our hearts, because grief itself is the final act of love.” - Sly Morikawa.

Sly Morikawa is a Sydney based artist working across themes of sex, subculture, and self. Through her sensitive, dreamlike photographs, she explores intimacy, desire, and the dualities of human experience — light and dark, beauty and tension, calm and chaos. Her images blur the line between the angelic and the unorthodox, inviting viewers into a world in which one can suspend biases and taboos.