Nick Waplington: Battleship Island

Recently approved as a UNESCO World Heritage site, Japan’s Battleship Island, Gunkanjima just off the coast of Nagasaki was once populated by an industrious coal mining community but was abandoned in 1974 when coal supplies depleted. Here, the British photographer presents his photographs of the eerie island. Having first visited Japan in the 1970s when his father took him to see the construction of the country’s first nuclear power stations, Waplington has been fascinated with the country, yet doesn’t nostalgically celebrate but rather comments on the passing of time and the impact of progress.