School Room

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/9.0 · 1/15 · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

Ceiling panels have collapsed onto the tiled floor of a room at Family School Fureai in Yubari, Hokkaido. A large section of the far wall has shed its white paint to a darker layer beneath. A solitary metal chair holds a framed picture against that stripped wall, and 2 broken window frames lean beneath the main window bank. The purpose of this space is no longer legible.

Edition

Open edition

Open edition
Printed to order, no fixed quantity. Each print is hand-signed by the photographer.

Limited edition
A fixed number of prints exist. Once sold, the edition closes permanently. Each print is individually numbered and signed.

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Colour

Signed, numbered, with COA. Made to order in 5 to 10 business days (unframed). Shipped in protective packaging with edition certificate, paper-stock reference and a printed care guide.

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In situ

School Room at Family School Fureai, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

School Room at Family School Fureai, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

School Room at Family School Fureai, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: School Room
Series: Family School Fureai
Catalogue: FSF-022
Process: Giclée
Captured: 28 April 2016
Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/9.0
Shutter: 1/15 s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 14 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 mm
Location: Yubari, Hokkaido, Japan
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Yubari, Hokkaido, Japan

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

Ceiling panels have collapsed onto the tiled floor, and a large section of the far wall has shed its white paint to a darker layer beneath. A solitary metal chair holds a framed picture against that stripped wall, and 2 broken window frames lean beneath the main window bank. The purpose of this space is no longer legible. The building that contains this room is the former Yubari Municipal Asahi Elementary School, a reinforced-concrete three-storey structure built in 1975 on the site of the demolished Yubari Daini Elementary School, in the Fukuzumi district of Yubari City, Hokkaido. It was built to consolidate three schools into one: Yubari Daini, Teibi, and Fukuzumi elementary schools, all of whose enrolments had been falling steadily as the coal mines that sustained the city began to close. At its 1975 opening, Asahi Elementary had 13 classes and 351 students. Yubari Daini alone had enrolled 2,827 students at its peak in 1952. Asahi Elementary School closed on 31 March 1983, eight years after it opened, merged into Yubari Elementary School as enrolments continued to fall. The building sat adjacent to the Coal History Village, a city-funded tourism development that opened the same year the school closed, part of Yubari's attempt to reinvent itself after the mines. In October 1994, Yubari Kanko Kaihatsu Co., Ltd., a third-sector entity established by Yubari City with capital of ¥30 million, converted the former school into a public lodging and group training facility under the name Family School Fureai. The classrooms were repurposed; guests came. By 2006, as Yubari City publicly declared its intention to seek fiscal rehabilitation status under the weight of approximately ¥35.3 billion in accumulated deficits, Family School Fureai ceased accepting guests. Yubari Kanko Kaihatsu filed for bankruptcy on 2 April 2007, with total debts of ¥5.46 billion. Family School Fureai was not among the facilities transferred to any successor operator. The room in this photograph has been here, in this condition, through all of it.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

Ceiling panels have collapsed onto the tiled floor of a room at Family School Fureai in Yubari, Hokkaido.

Brett Patman

The series

Family School Fureai

2016 · 30 photographs

Family School Fureai stands on a hillside at the northern end of Yubari in Hokkaido. The building opened on 1 April 1975 as Asahi Elementary School, a new three-storey reinforced-concrete structure built on the site of the demolished wooden Yubari Second Elementary (Daini). It consolidated three local schools - Daini, Fukuzumi and Teibi - that had lost most of their students as Yubari's coal industry shrank. By the early 1980s enrolment had collapsed; the school closed on 31 March 1983 after just eight years. The building stayed empty until Yubari City's tourism third-sector firm Yubari Kanko Kaihatsu, established October 1994, repurposed it as the Family School Fureai public dormitory. In June 2006 Yubari City announced its fiscal collapse; the city formally entered financial reconstruction status on 6 March 2007 and YKK ceased trading 31 March 2007 with ¥5.46 billion of debt. The building has sat empty since. Inside there is no graffiti - only kanji on the chalkboards. Deer and foxes use it now.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.