Exhibition reveals the changing face images Japan

Exhibition reveals the changing face images Japan

Triwik Kurniasari, THE JAKARTA POST, VE | Sunday 07/26/2009 11:57 | Life

What looks like Japan three decades ago? How the Japanese people, culture and urban landscapes in the 1970s?

As a picture tell a thousand words, then photographs by 76 photographers Japan 23 answers these questions, portraying Japan's 1970s until this day. Photographs displayed in the photo exhibition entitled "gazing at the Contemporary World: Japanese Photography from the 1970s to the Present."

This event is the expression of diverse images that appear in Japan since the 1970s. It tracks changes in Japan's face caused by the rapid economic growth in the 1980s, economic standstill in the 1990s, which increased from consumerism, traditional culture and waning in small villages.

In the exhibition, photographs of which are categorized into two parts. The first is titled "A Changing Society," which focuses on people as members of the community. Here, photographers are trying to portray something beyond the ordinary things of everyday life.

Kazuo Kitai's "To the Village" observe traditional way of life in the early 1970s that quickly disappeared because the rapid economic growth. Black and white images capture the transformation of society.

Kitai, for example, the capture of six elementary school students walk through the bridge, while another photo shows the old fisherman in the sweat shirt, trousers and hat, sitting in a traditional wooden boat while smoking a cigarette.

Photo of fishermen face and body language ask a thousand words. His expression may be one of fatigue or help, depending on how you see this.

A wedding entourage, dressed in formal kimonos and appropriate, that are running in the snow along the road in the village really take you back to the days of old Japan.

Kitai famous for working with issues of social and urban areas. In 1989, he released Funabashi Story, portraying life in the area of new housing on the fringe of modern Funabashi city Tokyo.

Nobuyoshi Araki's Love Subway passengers in the event to catch the subway, such as women's groups play in the train. The appropriate part exhibition is themed "Changing Landscapes", and check the Japanese urban landscape and nature.

Displaying photos landscape of Japan's most dramatic change in the years after the period of rapid economic growth, which lasted until the early 1970's.

Both in urban settings where the capital and the dense population, or villages in rural areas, the population quickly lost, for the old building and the people who live barely.

The landscape is continually transformed - and continue to change. At the end of the 1980s, Norio Kobayashi is one of the suburbs to see and catch the empty landscape. He, for example, shows the plot of hilly land and fenced by the road. Ryuji Miyamoto, through a series of "After the 1995 Kobe Earthquake", presents the impact of natural disasters in Kobe a ship that washed ashore and destroyed and the whole body.

The fast growth of urban areas is described in Takashi Homma's Tokyo Suburbia, which shows the development of a housing complex to1998 from 1995, while In Tokyo series by Eiji Ina, capturing the look of a modern building in the capital city in the early 1980s.

Some people may find it difficult to connect the image with one another, to form the core of Japan's changing landscape and society, as some images appear to bear no relation to the others.

Take Tokuko Ushioda series called Ice Box, the catch in different corners of the refrigerator and conditions. One picture shows a closed refrigerator with a note on the door, while other photos show was opened with a refrigerator full of food and beverages.

Firman Ichsan senior photographer, who is also a curator and lecturer at the Jakarta Art Institute (IKJ), said that the photographer is still often used-light photography.

"You might think that we do not let the picture only because the refrigerator. What's so special about that? But a simple object can be very important for photographers," he said.

Knowing the history of Japan, he said, is also an advantage for those who come and see the exhibition.

"Image is something unique. It Frees Our imaginations and our drive to know more about the meaning of it. This can tell us many stories. This is very different from the film, which tells us exactly the start and end of story," said Firman.

Thus, imagination and a little more time is key to enjoying the beauty of this creation.

Gazing in the Contemporary World

Japanese Photography
From the 1970s to the Present
Mini Gallery & Hall
The Japan Foundation
Summitmas I, 2 floors.
Jl. Jend. Sudirman Kav. 61-62
South Jakarta

021-5201266
From July 16 to August 4, 2009