A hall in advanced decay at Nichitsu Mining Village, photographed in 2016. Sunlight enters from one side. The floor is deteriorated and debris is scattered across the space. Walls show heavy staining and surface loss.

School Hall

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/9.0 · 1/2 · ISO 1000
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A hall in advanced decay at Nichitsu Mining Village, photographed in 2016. Sunlight enters from one side. The floor is deteriorated and debris is scattered across the space. Walls show heavy staining and surface loss. Wooden ceiling panels run the full length of the space above the damage.

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

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 Hall at Nichitsu Mining Village, black-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

School Hall at Nichitsu Mining Village, raw timber-framed print displayed in situ on a wall.

School Hall at Nichitsu Mining Village, glass print displayed in situ on a wall.

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: School Hall
Series: Nichitsu Mining Village
Catalogue: NMV-030
Process: Giclée
Captured: 4 May 2016
Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/9.0
Shutter: 1/2 s
ISO: 1000
Focal length: 14 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 297 × 210 mm
Location: Chichibu, Saitama, Japan
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Chichibu, Saitama, Japan

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

A hall in advanced decay at Nichitsu Mining Village, photographed in 2016. Sunlight enters from one side. The floor is deteriorated and debris is scattered across the space, splintered timber and cardboard among it. Walls show heavy staining and surface loss, and a large dark panel leans outward over a broken window frame. Wooden ceiling panels run the full length of the space above the damage. Ogurasawa Elementary and Middle School stood in this settlement, and its story tracks the settlement's own. It began as a private institution. In 1935, Chichibu Gakuen was established at the mine settlement to educate the children of workers in a valley too remote for any public school to reach. Otaki Village took it over as a public school in 1948. The building was completed in November 1952, a two-storey structure combining reinforced concrete and timber, covering 2,336 sqm on a 4,696.89 sqm site. The building featured ceramic tile art, sculptures and paintings. Arts education was a deliberate priority. Metal mining at Chichibu Mine ceased entirely in 1978, and families left with it. The school closed in the mid 1980s, and its students transferred to schools in Otaki Village. The Ogurasawa settlement was classified as uninhabited. Chichibu City approved its demolition in 2024, with a budget of ¥68 million. The building was gone by April 2025, and the land was to be returned to Nitchitsu Co. Ltd., which had owned the site throughout the school's entire existence. This photograph, made in 2016, is one of the records that remain.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A hall in advanced decay at Nichitsu Mining Village, photographed in 2016. Sunlight enters from one side.

Brett Patman

The series

Nichitsu Mining Village

2016 · 36 photographs

Nichitsu Mining Village - formally Ogura-sawa settlement - sits in the mountains above Chichibu in Saitama Prefecture. The mine was first worked around 1600 by the Kai Takeda clan, Takeda Shingen's house, who panned gold and placer gold from its streams. In the 1760s the Edo-period polymath Hiraga Gennai entered the valley to mine gold; his residence, Gennai-kyo, survives as a Chichibu City historic site. Yanase Trading bought the mine in 1910 and added iron-ore extraction. Nitchitsu took over in 1937 and reorganised as Nichitsu Mining Industry in 1950. By the 1960s the mine produced 500,000 tonnes a year of zinc, magnetite and over 140 mineral species - the most varied mine in Japan - supporting a town of 2,000 to 2,400 people with two schools, a hospital, a fire department, a cinema and a post office. Metal mining stopped in 1978; quartz sand began in 1969; crystalline limestone carried on until 30 September 2022, when Nitchitsu Co. closed the operation entirely.

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.