Ikuru Kuwajima was born in Chiba, Japan in 1984. He studied journalism in the United States at the University of Missouri from 2003 to 2007 and interned as a photojournalist for various newspapers. After a stint working as a freelance photojournalist in Bucharest, Romania, he moved to Ukraine in 2008 to work on long-term projects. Kuwajima is a native Japanese speaker and English-Japanese translator and is proficient in Russian and Romanian. His work has been recognized by the College Photographer of the Year competition, the Hearst Journalism Awards Program, and the Ueno Hikoma Award. Of this series, Yagnob, he writes, ‘Yagnobi are an ethnic group in Tajikitan. Currently around 500 people live in about 35-40 communities along the Yagnob River. Until recently, they didn’t have electricity. They live by raising goats, sheeps, cows and some vegetables. There is no doctor now, and some children don’t have access to schools, which are usually taught by one teacher at a house. The long winter could get as cold as -30 Celsius. Many said they don’t leave the place just because the mountains have been their home for many, many generations’.
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