Klavdij Sluban’s Photographic Journal of a Poetic Journey

Inspired by the journeys of Japanese poet Matsuo Basho (1644-1694), the classical haiku master whose short poems would use sensorial language to express an emotion or image, photographer Klavdij Sluban decided to retranscribe these unique travels across Japan in the form of black-and-white analogue photos. 

Divagation – in the footsteps of Basho recounts a poetic journey taken between 2015 and 2016, during which the photographer walked from Kyoto to Tokyo over fifteen days. 

Emotions that can’t be mapped

While Matsuo Basho claimed that the haiku is not in the words but in the heart, Klavdij Sluban wished to confront this idea by reducing the importance of the location. 

The Franco-Slovenian photographer explained that his project was the fruit of ‘an implicit meditation, stimulated by the fortuitous and contingent union of landscape and a memory of the past.’ Developing the intention for this work, produced in collaboration with the Villa Kujoyama, Klavdij Sluban adds, ‘as long as we know that it’s a mountain, a river, a rock, we don’t need a map to relive the impressions or the feelings of the author.’ 

Divagation – in the footsteps of Basho (2017), three books of 33 images by Klavdij Sluban, is published by the (M) éditions.