PIEDMONT, ITALY — In the quiet corners of family archives, history often waits patiently to be rediscovered. For Italian photographer Giada Ripa, a routine rummaging through old storage boxes in her family home in Piedmont yielded an extraordinary historical treasure: an intact album containing 53 hand-colored photographs captured by Felice Beato, one of the foundational visual chroniclers of 19th-century Japan.
This chance discovery did more than merely connect Ripa to a pioneering master of photography; it served as the catalyst for an ambitious, multi-layered artistic journey. Inspired by Beato’s mid-nineteenth-century documentation and an unpublished manuscript penned by a distant ancestor who traveled alongside him, Ripa embarked on a years-long expedition to retrace their footsteps. The culmination of this monumental effort is The Yokohama Project, a forthcoming photo book published by GOST Books that bridges a 150-year chasm to examine the profound transformations shaping Japanese society and its landscape from 1867 to the modern era.
Main Facts: A Convergence of Archives and Art
At its core, The Yokohama Project is a visual dialogue spanning three distinct perspectives and a century and a half of history. The project unites:
- The 19th-Century Lens of Felice Beato: Fifty-three rare, hand-colored photographs documenting Japanese society, trades, and landscapes during the turbulent closing years of the Tokugawa shogunate.
- The Written Accounts of Mathilde Ruinart: An unpublished manuscript by Ripa’s distant ancestor, an artist and muse who journeyed to Japan in 1867 alongside her diplomat husband to source new varieties of silkworms for the Italian export market.
- The Contemporary Portfolio of Giada Ripa: A series of deliberate, large-format analog studio portraits and landscape studies capturing modern-day Japanese citizens—from traditional geishas and Buddhist monks to fashion designers, kickboxers, and delivery workers.
Scheduled for release on September 28, the publication features meticulously crafted spreads incorporating rare rice-paper reproductions of Beato’s original photographs directly alongside Ripa’s contemporary images, creating a striking physical and conceptual juxtaposition.
Chronology: Following the Path from 1867 to the Present
To understand the weight of Ripa’s discovery, one must trace the historical timeline that anchors the project, moving from the opening of Japan to the meticulous modern revival of its visual history.
The Shogunate and the Western Eye (1860s)
In the 1860s, Japan was undergoing a seismic cultural and political shift. Having spent more than two centuries largely isolated from the Western world under a policy of strict national seclusion (sakoku), the country began to open its ports following the forced trade concessions of the mid-19th century. Foreigners were heavily restricted, with access granted primarily to official diplomatic missions and select foreign residents.
Among those foreign pioneers was Felice Beato, a British-Italian photographer renowned for his early war photography in Crimea and China. Settling in Yokohama, Beato established a successful studio and captured iconic images of Japanese life just as the feudal samurai era was giving way to the modernization of the Meiji Restoration. Because photography technology was in its infancy, Beato employed local Japanese artists to meticulously hand-color his albumen prints. For more than five decades, these vivid, staged portraits and street scenes served as the primary window through which the West visualized Japan, heavily influencing travel literature, illustrated newspapers, and international perceptions.
The Silk Route and the Forgotten Manuscript (1867)
Parallel to Beato’s photographic documentation was the journey of Mathilde Ruinart. As a 19th-century artist and intellectual muse, Ruinart traveled to Japan in 1867 with her diplomat husband. Their official mission was economic and scientific: to secure new, resilient varieties of silkworms for export back to Italy, which was then suffering from an epidemic among European silkworm populations.
During her time in Japan, Ruinart not only immersed herself in the local culture but also forged a personal friendship with Felice Beato. Her unpublished diaries and manuscripts—uncovered by Ripa months after the photo album discovery—offer a rare, intimate European perspective on Japanese domestic life, social etiquette, and the rapidly changing urban landscape during the twilight of the shogunate.
The Modern Retracing and Production (2016–2026)
Empowered by the physical artifacts of her family’s past, Giada Ripa set out to recreate the journeys of Beato and Ruinart. Utilizing an analog large-format camera, Ripa deliberately emulated the slow, methodical pace and formal compositions of 19th-century documentary photography. She retraced the geographical paths of her predecessors in Yokohama and Tokyo, seeking out the spatial echoes of a bygone era before turning her lens toward the living inhabitants of modern Japan.
Supporting Data and Structural Breakdown of the Book
The Yokohama Project is structured into two distinct, interconnected thematic chapters, designed to guide the reader through an evolutionary study of anthropology, culture, and visual representation.
Chapter One: The Archival and Anthropological Journey
The first section of the book acts as an archaeological and geographical survey. Utilizing rare rice-paper reproductions of Beato’s original prints, Ripa places historical views of Japanese streets, rural paths, and architecture alongside her own contemporary photographs of the exact same locations. This chapter investigates the persistence of landscape—what has been erased by urbanization, what has been preserved, and how the spatial memory of the 1860s survives in modern Tokyo and Yokohama.
Chapter Two: The Contemporary "Native Types"
In the 19th century, Western photographers like Beato frequently categorized local populations into stylized ethnographic portraits labeled as "native types"—depicting samurai, fishmongers, priests, and laborers against plain studio backgrounds.
In the book’s second chapter, Ripa subverts and honors this tradition by establishing a contemporary counterpart. She set up a portable studio in Tokyo to photograph modern equivalents of Beato’s subjects. The resulting portraits include:
- Traditional and Spiritual Figures: Buddhist monks of the Nichiren-shu sect, traditional geishas (Suzume), and practitioners of historic trades.
- Modern Labor and Industry: Contemporary fishmongers from the wholesale cooperatives of the Tokyo fish markets, delivery workers in corporate uniforms, and kickboxing champions.
- Youth and Subculture Icons: Avant-garde students from the Bunka Fashion College, Lolita-style fashion models, and legendary figures like Yuko Yamaguchi, the third character designer of Hello Kitty.
By juxtaposing these modern figures against the historical portraits, Ripa highlights how traditional Japanese roles have evolved, hybridized, or completely reinvented themselves in a hyper-modern globalized economy.
Official Responses and Publisher Perspectives
The rediscovery and subsequent publication have garnered significant attention from the international fine art and photography communities. GOST Books, renowned for publishing critically acclaimed documentary and conceptual photography, champions the project as a masterclass in archival reinterpretation.
"The Yokohama Project does not merely look backward with nostalgia; it creates an active, restless tension between the past and the present," notes the editorial statement from GOST Books. "By pairing the foundational, exoticized views of early Western photography with a deeply respectful, modern analog taxonomy, Ripa forces us to question how cultures are documented, preserved, and consumed over centuries."*
Art historians have similarly praised the inclusion of Mathilde Ruinart’s writings, noting that female travelers and artists of the 19th century were frequently marginalized in historical accounts. Ruinart’s prose provides a vital, nuanced counterweight to the male-dominated diplomatic and photographic records of the era, enriching the book with domestic insights that photography alone could not capture.
Implications: Challenging Western Perceptions and Archival Legacy
Beyond its aesthetic brilliance, The Yokohama Project carries deep implications for contemporary discussions surrounding visual anthropology, cultural representation, and colonial-era archives.
Deconstructing the "Exotic" Archive
In the 19th century, photographs by figures like Beato were instrumental in constructing the Western imagination of the "Orient." These images were often carefully staged to satisfy European desires for picturesque tradition, neatly packaging a complex, rapidly modernizing society into digestible, exotic archetypes.
By revisiting these exact visual tropes with contemporary Japanese subjects—ranging from subculture icons to corporate employees—Ripa’s work deconstructs the power dynamics of the original archive. The subjects in Ripa’s modern portraits are not passive exoticized objects; they actively collaborate in their representation, wearing their contemporary identities with self-awareness and agency.
The Value of Family Archives in Modern Art
Ripa’s discovery underscores the immense cultural value locked away in private European collections. As globalization accelerates and physical family histories are increasingly digitized or discarded, The Yokohama Project stands as a powerful testament to the role of the contemporary artist as an archivist and historian. By anchoring her artistic vision in her family’s tangible past, Ripa transforms private inheritance into public dialogue.
A 150-Year Continuum
Ultimately, The Yokohama Project transcends simple photographic comparison. It demonstrates that history is not a static line of events, but a continuous, living dialogue. Through the combined ghosts of Felice Beato and Mathilde Ruinart, and the sharp, deliberate analog gaze of Giada Ripa, the book invites viewers to witness a civilization caught in perpetual motion—honoring its deep-rooted traditions while fearlessly writing its future.
The Yokohama Project by Giada Ripa is available for pre-order through GOST Books ahead of its official release on September 28.
