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My photographic interest in Japan focuses on the long history of contact between Japan and Europe respectively the West. During the time of Japan's closure (ca. 1600-1854) its contacts to Europe were basically limited to the port of Nagasaki in southern Japan. After Japan's opening, especially during the Meiji period (1868-1912), numerous Western specialists travelled to Japan in order to help build up Japanese schools and universities, the medical system, the judicial system, and the military or to advise industrial companies. Therefore in Japan many places exist where Western foreigners have lived and worked.
The piece Contact Zone mainly focuses on cross-cultural phenomena in contemporary Japan. Photographically I frequent locations that are closely related to cultural relations with Europe. These consist of still existing architectural structures built or influenced by European architects or places of activity of Europeans in Japan, locations where they have stayed or are still staying. Furthermore, I am interested in places that show European looking structures. Another point is to casually connect aspects of traditional Japanese culture with newer (assumedly Western) aspects to show the coexistence of both sides of Japanese culture in the cityscape and everyday-life. Even though I am interested in historical aspects of the relationship between Japanese and European culture I don't want to show a historicized image of Japanese society. I rather want to take on facets that are being omitted by other contemporary photography in Japan. With my work I want to close some gaps and show a different section of contemporary Japan. While the European image of Japan is mainly coined by the postmodern architecture of booming metropolis Tokyo, in Japanese everyday-life there may be only few contacts with these cityscapes conveyed as prototypical. |