Cluttered office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, desks buried under binders and boxes with cables across the ceiling and a CRT monitor at right.
Cluttered office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, desks buried under binders and boxes with cables across the ceiling and a CRT monitor at right.

Cluttered Office

Provenance

Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Kodak Portra 400 · 35mm · ISO 400
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

Desks buried under paper, ring binders and cardboard document boxes. Cables looping across the ceiling tiles. A CRT monitor and keyboard on a trolley at right. Glass-fronted cabinets of files along the far wall. A framed picture beside the window. Blinds at the back with bright daylight behind them.

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.

$100.00 AUD
Size
Type
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

A cluttered desk covered in ring binders, paperwork and a white NEDO box, with a framed flamingo print on the wall above a cabinet, photographed inside the coal mine offices at Ikeshima.A cluttered desk covered in ring binders, paperwork and a white NEDO box, with a framed flamingo print on the wall above a cabinet, photographed inside the coal mine offices at Ikeshima.A cluttered desk covered in ring binders, paperwork and a white NEDO box, with a framed flamingo print on the wall above a cabinet, photographed inside the coal mine offices at Ikeshima.A cluttered desk covered in ring binders, paperwork and a white NEDO box, with a framed flamingo print on the wall above a cabinet, photographed inside the coal mine offices at Ikeshima.A cluttered desk covered in ring binders, paperwork and a white NEDO box, with a framed flamingo print on the wall above a cabinet, photographed inside the coal mine offices at Ikeshima.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Cluttered Office
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-021
Process
Giclée
Captured
17 January 2026
Camera
Nikon F100
Film
Kodak Portra 400
Format
35mm
Film ISO
400
Paper
Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Location
Ikeshima, Nagasaki, Japan
Recognised by
Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards
02 LOCATION

Ikeshima, Nagasaki, Japan

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

A cluttered office in the No. 2 Shaft office building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, its desks buried under paper, ring binders and cardboard document boxes, one of them stamped NEDO. Cables loop across the ceiling tiles, a CRT monitor and keyboard sit on a trolley at right, glass-fronted cabinets of files line the far wall, and a framed picture hangs beside the window. Bright daylight comes through the blinds at the back and turns the whole room to silhouette. After the pit closed in 2001, the site kept working as a training centre for overseas miners, and offices like this one carried the paperwork of that second life.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A cluttered office in the No. 2 Shaft office building at Ikeshima Coal Mine, its desks buried under paper, ring binders and cardboard document boxes, one of them stamped NEDO. Cables loop across the ceiling tiles, a CRT monitor and keyboard sit on a trolley at right, glass-fronted cabinets of files line the far wall, and a framed picture hangs beside the window.

Brett Patman

Ikeshima

The series

Ikeshima

1959 to 2001 · 54 photographs

Ikeshima Coal Mine operated beneath the seabed off Nagasaki from 1959 until 29 November 2001, making it the last new coal mine to open in Japan and the last large-scale underground colliery to close. At its 1970 peak the island held 7,770 residents on a 0.86 km² rock in the Gotō Sea, housed in company-built concrete towers above a mine that reached 650 m below sea level.

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.

Anatomy · true ratio
07 MORE FROM IKESHIMA

53 other prints in this series

All prints
Dim office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, a white hard hat and a cup on two desks below a buckled venetian blind.
Hard Hat$100.00
View from an apartment window in Ikeshima-machi, utility pole and wires above silver grass with the Matsushima power station chimney across the sea.
Apartment Window$100.00
Window in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, glass gone and a creeper hanging in over the sill above the sea.
Ocean Outlook$100.00
Pithead bath in the No. 2 Shaft office at Ikeshima Coal Mine, concrete troughs on a tiled floor with a vent fan on the far wall.
Pithead Bath$100.00
08 BY POST · NO SPAM

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