Miki Jo made a vivid debut in 2006 with the photobook SEX, and Annyon is her long-awaited second. The photographs all come from her first trip to Korea, in 2006, a journey of particular significance because she is a Japanese-born Korean. Pregnant at the time, she felt it was a good moment to discover her roots and set out to witness the proof of her own origins. The pictures show many details of the trip, including ticket stubs, images on television and meals, a personal style that brings the viewer close to her own experience, and the self-portraits of her pregnancy and childbirth are full of objective brilliance. In Korea she met, in an unexpected, almost miraculous way, one of her relatives, through whom she saw an early copy of her family registry, an event that is represented in the book. Annyon is a well-realised document of her travels, and it also hints at the deeper motivations that made her want to visit Korea in the first place. The word annyeong, which means both hello and goodbye, gives the book its title, and the photographs born along the way have a tight, stinging intensity.