A dark green folding chair on a dusty concrete floor faces three large windows thick with green foliage, with vine tendrils trailing down the white wall beside water stains, in an office at the Ikeshima Coal Mine.
A dark green folding chair on a dusty concrete floor faces three large windows thick with green foliage, with vine tendrils trailing down the white wall beside water stains, in an office at the Ikeshima Coal Mine.

Folding Chair Interior

Provenance

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

A dark green folding chair stands on dusty concrete, its shadow distinct on the floor. Three large windows are dense with green foliage; dappled light breaks through the leaves. Vine tendrils trail down the white wall beside water stains. Light-coloured pipes cross the ceiling at top left.

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
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In situ

A dark green folding chair on a dusty concrete floor faces three large windows thick with green foliage, with vine tendrils trailing down the white wall beside water stains, in an office at the Ikeshima Coal Mine.A dark green folding chair on a dusty concrete floor faces three large windows thick with green foliage, with vine tendrils trailing down the white wall beside water stains, in an office at the Ikeshima Coal Mine.A dark green folding chair on a dusty concrete floor faces three large windows thick with green foliage, with vine tendrils trailing down the white wall beside water stains, in an office at the Ikeshima Coal Mine.A dark green folding chair on a dusty concrete floor faces three large windows thick with green foliage, with vine tendrils trailing down the white wall beside water stains, in an office at the Ikeshima Coal Mine.A dark green folding chair on a dusty concrete floor faces three large windows thick with green foliage, with vine tendrils trailing down the white wall beside water stains, in an office at the Ikeshima Coal Mine.
01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title
Folding Chair Interior
Series
Ikeshima
Catalogue
IKE-023
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
Nagasaki, Nagasaki, Japan
Recognised by
Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards
02 LOCATION

Nagasaki, Nagasaki, Japan

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The building that housed the workshops and safety offices of the Ikeshima Coal Mine held rooms like this one: concrete floors, white walls, windows that once looked out across an operating industrial island. In 2026, one dark green folding chair remains angled on the dusty floor, its shadow thrown clearly across the surface. The three large windows opposite are almost entirely consumed by dense green foliage, dappled sunlight breaking through the leaves. Thin vine tendrils trail down the white wall from the central window, running beside vertical water stains. Light-coloured pipes cross the ceiling in the upper left corner. Ikeshima, an island of about 1.08 km² sitting roughly 7 km off the Nishi-Sonogi Peninsula in Nagasaki Prefecture, was developed as an undersea coal mine from the early 1950s. Commercial output began in 1959, making Ikeshima the last new coal mine to open in Japan. The entire worked field lay beneath the seabed, reaching depths of around 650 m below sea level, with a second working area developed from 1974 around the islet of Hikishima, about 4 to 5 km to the west. At the island's 1970 peak, around 7,770 people lived on it. The mine produced over 1.5 million tonnes of coal in its peak year of 1985, and approximately 44.5 million tonnes of clean coal across its working life. The Ikeshima Coal Mine closed on 29 November 2001. About 2,500 employees were dismissed. The mine building, the shafts, and much of the island's housing still stand. The foliage at these windows has had more than two decades to take back what it can reach.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

An office in the mine building that held the workshops and safety offices of the Ikeshima Coal Mine sits quietly behind three windows almost completely overtaken by foliage. A single folding chair remains on the concrete floor, vine tendrils trailing down the wall beside vertical water stains. The coal mine closed on 29 November 2001 after commercial output that began in 1959, the last large-scale coal mine in Japan to operate. The island, about 1.08 km² off the Nishi-Sonogi Peninsula in Nagasaki Prefecture, once held a peak population of around 7,770 in 1970.

Brett Patman

Ikeshima

The series

Ikeshima

1959 to 2001 · 55 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 1.08 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

54 other prints in this series

All prints
A yellow hard hat and scattered tools on a cluttered workbench inside the workshops and safety offices at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with buckled blinds and daylight through a glass window behind.
Workbench and Blinds$100.00
View through a dark window frame at Ikeshima showing two utility poles with tangled wires against pale sky, dry grass, a concrete structure, and a white lighthouse on a distant landmass across open water.
Wires and Sea$100.00
Cracked white plaster and bare concrete walls in the main mining office at Ikeshima, with broad-leafed vines growing in through a wide glassless window opening onto pale grass and open sea.
Window and Vines$100.00
Interior of the miners' bathhouse at Ikeshima Coal Mine, with a clock above far windows, concrete washing troughs across the tiled floor, and a rusted spigot trough along the right wall.
Washery Interior$100.00
08 BY POST · NO SPAM

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