Shinro Ohtake: UK77

## Digging My Way to London

**Nobuyoshi Araki, 21 years old,**
**A glimpse of what I saw in London, where punk raged**

**Published:** June 2004
**Format:** B5, hardcover, 656 pages (4C 144 pages, 1C 512 pages)

**Digging to London: Nobuyoshi Araki**

I spent a little over a year in the UK, starting on May 3, 1977. Most of that time was in London. After six months, my tourist visa expired, and I took a cheap "magic bus" from Victoria Station to Paris for about ten days. Other than that, I spent almost a year in London. It was my first time living alone overseas.

Everything in this book was photographed, drawn, and pasted during my stay in the UK from May 3, 1977, to April 28, 1978. My year in London was a constant cycle of moving and relocating, so I always had to keep my belongings as compact as possible. Looking back, I think that's why I naturally gravitated towards a camera and notebook. I didn't have the financial means to buy all the materials for oil painting, and it would have taken up too much space. Also, oil paintings take a long time to dry and are inconvenient to transport, so I ended up not painting a single one. I did paint a few acrylics, but I gave them away to friends and acquaintances who helped me move and return home. Only a few photos of those paintings remain.

The notebooks that came out with the photos and sketches, I had always assumed were just regular "diaries." But looking at them again this time, I realized they were mostly "account books." I never had a habit of keeping a diary before, but looking back, the seemingly dry list of expenses, rather than a diary filled with thoughts and emotions, brought back the details of my daily life in those days more vividly.