Noriko Hayashi is a long-form documentary photographer, but this series feels as much like a personal pursuit as a professional one. Between 1959 and 1984, as part of a ‘repatriation program,’ over 90,000 men and women left Japan to settle in North Korea, including 1,800 Japanese women married to Korean men. This series is about these Japanese women who, at the mercy of politics and the times, were forced into an unanticipated exile, far away from their home country and their families. Noriko Hayashi visited North Korea twelve times over seven years to interview and photograph eight of these women. Her project made it possible for them to reminisce about their past life in Japan, and for us to hear their stories: tales of exile, family, and the weight of history and memory. Looking at their portraits and discovering their stories, one feels the deep and beautiful connection that united the photographer with her subjects. With this very challenging project, developed over time and relying on a deep trust and connection built with her subjects, Hayashi exemplifies the role that photography plays in our society as a conveyor of the human experience.