シンデイ・ビシッグ

Cindy Bissig

Beyond Sake is a long-term photographic project by Japan-based sake professional and writer-photographer Cindy Bissig, documenting craft communities through an intimate focus on sake breweries and the people who sustain them.

The work centers on the collective life behind the drink: kurabito at work, the shared rhythm of the brewery, and the quiet transmission of knowledge across generations. Tradition appears not as nostalgia, but as a living practice - shaped by repetition, experience, and adaptation. Within this space, change naturally unfolds: new generations entering the kura, women taking active roles, and emerging expressions such as craft sake and doburoku redefining what nihonshu can be.

For this edition of Beyond Sake, the exhibition invites viewers inside a 350-year-old sake brewery in Kyoto. Here, nihonshu is revealed as more than a beverage - it is an environment, a discipline, and a shared responsibility. The images offer a portrait of continuity and dedication, grounded in daily labor and human presence, and shaped by the people who carry this craft forward. Providing a window into a hidden community whose effort to keep an industry that is so deeply tied to every aspect of Japanese culture alive.