Kai Yokoyama

Kai Yokoyama is a portrait and documentary photographer based in Tokyo, Japan.
Starting out as an architecture student at Saitama University, he switched his major to photography and completed his studies at Tokyo College of Photography.  After working as an assistant to contemporary art photographer Izima Kaoru, he has become a full-time freelance photographer.  In 2019, he won these awards, KLPA Top 50 Photographer Finalist, PX3 silver medal portrait.  He was recently chosen as a shortlist of the Star Wars Families commission by Disney/Lucasfilm and BJP.  This year, he receives Yumi Goto(RPS)’s a one-year mentorship program in Tokyo.  Also, he was selected for the shortlist Athens Photo Festival 2020.

I miss the smell of jasmine in Palestine

“The war has begun again.”
A woman from the Gaza Strip in Palestine said.

On November 12, 2019, 34 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza Strip.
She doesn’t usually watch Palestinian news.
But she had known the news that day because her brother sent her a message.
She says that she doesn’t want to be connected with being a Palestinian.

In October 2018, in Palestine, she told her mother and family that she would return after two
months.
She left her homeland via Israel and Jordan and arrived in Japan in 2019 to start a new life
without returning to Palestine.
She hasn’t seen her family since the day she left.

“My father died of cancer due to the banned chemical weapons in Gaza.
He asked me to cut his nails.
It was just before he died and it was difficult to cut them by himself.
I haven’t told my family all that happened in Japan.
Living alone in Japan is not easy, but I don’t want them to worry.
I miss the smell of jasmine in Palestine.”

To view more of Kai Yokoyama’s work please visit their website.