asterisk books, founded in 2017 by Daisuke Morishita, is a photobook label dedicated to contemporary photography.
Now based in Chiba, just outside Tokyo, it explores the possibilities of the photographic medium through the concept of pure photography—making use of photography in its most elemental form.
The label is engaged in photobook publishing, exhibitions, and the planning of lectures.

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The asterisk is a mark whose name traces back to the Latin word for “star.”
In books, it signals annotations or quotations, or serves as a quiet pause to shape rhythm.
In the field of information processing, it functions as a wildcard—standing in for what is not yet known, allowing the story to continue forward.

 

Photography is a method of quotation: it replaces what exists in reality with an image.
And yet, it also carries the power to precede recognition, to arrive before understanding.
A photograph need not declare a single, fixed meaning.
It may remain unresolved—and still speak.

 

We do not grasp the world with perfect clarity.
Still, we move through each day, sensing the presence of something new, something possible,
as we walk, as we move our hands.

 

It might be a flower, a stone, a star.
It might be me, or you, or someone else entirely.
The asterisk stands for that unnamed something—
that quiet sign of what could be.

Daisuke Morishita