“Advice is fine, but don’t listen to everything,” says the pioneering and award-winning Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako. Miyako argues that the road to success for a photographer is about improving your cultural knowledge and “to do your best, and then you will see the result.” Ishiuchi Miyako (b. 1947) is a Japanese photographer. In 2005, Miyako represented Japan at the 51st Venice Biennale with her work ‘Mother’s’ (2000-2005). She has been the subject of solo retrospectives at the J. Paul Getty Museum (2015) and the Yokohama Museum of Art (2017), among others, and her work is held in the collections of MoMA in New York and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Miyako’s accolades include the Kimura Ihei Memorial Photographic Award (1979), and the 2014 Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. Ishiuchi Miyako was interviewed by Mette Holm in her home in Kiryu in March 2020.