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Aki, 秋 is a reading room and bookshop presenting a selection of publications from the Osaka-based independent bookstore LVDB BOOKS.Inspired by Aki Kaurismäki, the project grows out of an exchange that began in 2015, when we first visited LVDB BOOKS in Japan.
The reading room brings together more than 100 publications, including photobooks, artists’ books, zines and hard-to-find books and magazines. The selection is available to browse and read, with some titles for sale.
The space also features an exhibition by photographer Soji Akimasa, presenting photographs taken in the neighbourhoods surrounding LVDB BOOKS.
Open Thursdays 14–18 and Saturdays 12–16, with occasional exceptions, and by appointment. The reading room opens on 13 November as part of Kunstbok Oslo’s satellite programme.
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LVDB BOOKS is an independent bookstore based in Tanabe, Osaka, its name inspired by Aki Kaurismäki’s 1992 film La Vie de Bohème, and founded and run by Tsubasa Kambayashi. Housed in a beautiful old Japanese townhouse, the shop is a small neighbourhood space devoted to books, art and independent publishing.
The shop offers a carefully selected collection of new, rare and hard-to-find books. Its distinctive selection spans Japanese and international publications, with a particular interest in artists’ books, photobooks, zines and small-press editions, often focusing on publications that exist outside mainstream distribution.
Alongside the bookshop, LVDB BOOKS hosts exhibitions, book launches, readings and talks, and works with artists, writers, designers and independent publishers.
Soji Akimasa (b. 1996, Osaka; lives and works in Osaka) is a photographer whose work moves between documentary observation, realism and a cinematic sensibility. His photographs depict people, everyday scenes and places, shaped by contrasts of light and shadow and moments of partial obscurity.
So Takahashi (b. 1972, Yokohama. lives and works in Oslo) is a Japanese multidisciplinary designer. His practice spans visual and spatial design to sound and food. He has been composing electronic music since the late 1990s, with releases and performances alongside his work in design. In recent years, food and the shared meal have become part of his practice, including multisensory dinners and the Japanese-Norwegian supper club Yohaku. Today these threads come together in experience design: shaping space, sound and taste into moments that are shared rather than looked at.
So Takahashi performs live at Editions Blank Blank on 13 November 2026.
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