Sakae Ōsugi (*1885, †1923) was a Japanese anarchist; an important socialist, later anarcho-syndicalist activist, publicist and theoretician of the Taishō period. On 20 Nov 1922 he got an invitation to attend the 2nd International Anarchist Congress in Berlin in Feb 1923. After borrowing the necessary 1.000 Yen in travel expenses from the writer Arishima Takeo and others, he travelled to Shanghai on 13 Dec. where comrades helped him obtain a false Chinese passport on the names Chin Chen aka Tong Chin Tangle. He landed in Marseille on 13 Feb on a French ship. He didn’t get the necessary foreigner‘s identity card issued in Lyon.
Nevertheless, he travelled to Paris. He canceled his plans to travel to Berlin instead he stayed in Paris and gave a May Day speech in the north Parisian suburb of Saint-Denis. There he was arrested by civilian police who knew about his presence in Europe. He was sentenced to three weeks in prison and deportation for passport offences. On 2 June he was sent back to Japan where he later was murdered – together with his second wife feminist and anarchist Itō Noe and a nephew – in Tokyo on 16 Sept 1923 by military police. The police used the chaotic situation during the great Kantō earthquake to cover up several murders of political prisoners. Sakaes murder is known as the Amakasu Incident.

In his book »My escapes from Japan« he mentiones a »workers’ hall« near the Basilica in Saint-Denis. Most likely he refers to the »Bourse du Travail« of Saint-Denis which was located in the Hotel de Ville at that time.
In April 1892 a workers union was created for the first time in Saint-Denis initially in the premises of the Hotel de Ville opposite of the Basilica. In April 1895,
several local trade unions formed a »Bourse du Travail« which was first located on rue Saulger, later on rue des Ursulines and rue Suger. The current »Bourse
du Travail« on Rue Génin was designed by architect Roland Castro. Since the 1980s the architect has been working on the idea of a Grand Paris (he is at the origin of the »Banlieue 89« think tank with the urban architect Michel Cantal-
Dupart). In Feb 2023, almost 100 years after Sakae Ōsugi’s experiences in Saint-Denis, Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber walked from Hotel de Ville past Passage Saulger, rue des Ursulines and rue Suger until they finally reached Rue Génin.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber. 2024
Sakae Osugi. Anarchiste Japonais.
published by Nouveau Palais & Böhm Kobayashi
with a text by Marie Tesson (fr.)
240 pages, 10,8 x 15 cm
110 photographs, Softcover
Ed. of 500 copies

Sugamo Prison, constructed in 1895, based on European prison models, gained notoriety by the 1930s for detaining political prisoners, including numerous communists and anarchists like Sakae Osugi. In 1978, the Sunshine 60 Building, which became Japan‘s tallest skyscraper at the time of its completion, was erected on the former prison site. This building is part of Sunshine City, a large complex in East Ikebukuro, Tokyo. Opened in 1978, the complex includes corporate offices, a shopping mall with various restaurants, and attractions such as an observatory at the top of Sunshine 60, the Ancient Orient Museum, an aquarium, a planetarium, the Prince Hotel, a Namco-operated indoor amusement park, a convention center, and a theater.

Kitakagaya is a town in Osaka, near the mouth of the Kizu River, along Osaka Bay. The area has a long history as an industrial and fishing hub and is now home to numerous artists. Kitakagaya hosts various small businesses, as well as shipping, recycling or logistics companies. In 2024, artist and musician Hino Koshiro asked us to take photographs in Kitakagaya for a music project titled Uta to Gyaku ni. Uta ni.
which he developed in collaboration with Ikeda Shotaro, poet and performance artist. Their work was inspired by the poet Ono Tozaburo and his 1939 poetry collection Osaka. Ono was associated with the anarchist movement and an admirer of Japanese anarchist Osugi Sakae.

End of the 1980s Japanese photographer Noboru Hama took images of vacant lots around Kanda/Jimbocho, the book-district in Tokyo. »Old houses were torn down, people moved, the city transformed anew on a
daily basis. Yet the empty lots left behind remained vacant for several years, announcing the end of the money-game party.« The 1990s in Japan where the beginning of economic turmoil and recession, resulting in their Lost Decade. On one rainy day in March 2024 we revisited these places and found different architectural styles from the 1990s. Osamu Kanemura, another photographer, wrote about his perspective on a changing Tokyo: »every fifty years, the city changes so much that different generations are unable to share the same memory in the same setting. Like soil cities
have different layers,« a complex structure of various vertical plateaus.