2023.07.05
Early summer in 2023. An unusual photo exhibition was being held in an office building in Kyobashi, Tokyo. As you enter the building’s entrance hall, you’ll see rows of photographs taller than a person. The photographs capture the scape of Yaesu, Nihonbashi, and Kyobashi, where large-scale redevelopment is underway. Photographs of this town are displayed in a building built in this town. It’s a bit of a nesting structure.
The photographs have a nostalgic, emotional feel. The captions say they were all from 2019. Why were photographs from four years ago selected?
The photographs were taken by a filmmaker, Shuhei Hatano, who has won the Grand Prix at a global film festival. This shoot gave him the opportunity to see scenery he had never seen before.
Hatano began photographing Yaesu, Nihonbashi, and Kyobashi after a request from a local company involved in urban development.
“They wanted me to record the city’s changing appearance due to redevelopment. However, they said it was OK for me to take the photos independently with my own perspective and in my own way without worrying about how they would be presented to the outside world. No particular way to present the works, such as a photo book or photo exhibition were not determined.”
Hatano has released films that are a mix of documentary and fiction, with a fantastical and mysterious aftertaste. This time, he took both photos and videos.
When he started shooting, his first question was “What does it mean to record a changing city?”
“If I only took photos of buildings being built, I would end up with only photos of construction sites. How could I capture an elapse to time instead of moment? In the end, I couldn’t find an answer, so I just snapped pictures of what caught my eye without thinking too much. Like a pickpocket, he snapped away momentary scenes one after the other.”
The shoot took place over a year from December 2018 to January 2020. The photos were meant to capture the latest changes in Yaesu, Nihonbashi, and Kyobashi as they were undergoing redevelopment. However, immediately after the shoot, the pages of the age were suddenly and forcibly torn away, and new pages emerged. Yes, because of the pandemic.
Companies implemented remote work, and streets were deserted as if cities had been forgotten. The few people who went out all wore a face mask. At the same time, the photos Hatano took of the city changed into the scenery before.
These photographs thus took on a different meaning than they had when they were taken. Hatano released a collection of the photographs as Before Us in December 2020. His first photo book was composed of black-and-white snapshots. Before Us had further development. Photo exhibition Before Us was held at Tokyo Square Garden in Kyobashi from May to June 2023.
“When large enlarged photos were exhibited, I felt as if the scenery of 2019 was spreading out before my eyes. Also, the passage of time helped me to see many things that I had not seen before. I think I was able to express both physical Before in the sense of in front of my eyes and temporal Before in the sense of before. When I saw my own photos, I felt an overwhelming excitement.”
Photo from the photo exhibition Before Us
Meanwhile, in reality, the streets were bustling with people without masks, and the times had once again changed to post-COVID. As a result, the photos taken in 2019 have been transformed into scenery from two eras ago so to speak. This fact further confuses Hatano’s understanding of the town.
“Yaesu, Nihonbashi and Kyobashi have a wide variety of scenery. The more I walked while shooting, the more I felt like I was sinking into the depths. And even after he finished shooting, that feeling only deepened.”
What kind of scenery did Hatano see in this town? What he saw there vividly was the image of a city that continues to drift.
“In preparation for the shoot, I was taught the history of the area. The town was built on what was originally the sea. However, exactly 100 years ago, a major earthquake destroyed everything. A new town was built there, but after that, it was burned to the ground in an air raid. Once again, people rebuilt the town.
Through this initiative, I have experienced firsthand the dramatic changes in the town. The meaning of the photographs I took has changed significantly because of the virus. For example, when I look at the photos from 2019 now, my eye is naturally drawn to the fact that people are not wearing masks, despite being in a so-called crowded situation. But of course, I never thought of that at the time the photos were taken.
In this way, my original intentions for the photo gradually faded, and something unintended emerged. I realized that I hadn’t captured the town at all.”
At the same time, a view of the town with a kind of awesomeness emerges in Hatano’s eyes.
“That incomprehensibility itself is what makes this town. It directly responds to global trends and new stirrings, and old and new, locals and outsiders alike mix together in a constant state of change. A town where change is a constant.
This is only the view I get from the perspective of a newcomer from outside, neither a resident nor a party responsible for the development. But to me, this is the reality of this town, and it’s also its charm. It’s amazing how it’s simply always changing. There is a strength there that swallows everything and keeps changing, and a transience and beauty that comes from that.”
Yaesu, Nihonbashi, and Kyobashi are places where multiple cutting-edge aspects overlap. It is cutting-edge in the sense that it is a key transportation hub and the entrance to Tokyo. It is therefore cutting-edge in that it is the first to receive the latest culture, customs, and styles. And cutting-edge in the sense that it is reclaimed land created on the edge of land and sea. Because it is at the cutting edge, it is constantly exposed to new things, blending with history and culture rooted since ancient times, which in turn gives birth to new history and culture.
What Hatano witnessed through his photograph may have been something like a giant monster, beautiful and somehow ephemeral, undergoing dynamic metabolism.
Photo from the photo exhibition Before Us. Photo that captures the drifting town on the surface of Nihonbashi River
Hatano also feels a certain pleasure in having his own intentions betrayed in this way and an unexpected scene emerging.
“When I create a work, I do so with a certain intention. But as I surrender myself to the movements created by media such as photography and video, I feel as if I am gradually losing myself and the subject itself is beginning to emerge. I encounter and discover things I never expected, and I am renewed. The view changes before and after I create.
In the end, I realized that it’s because I enjoy it that I have continued to create works. That there is also a pleasure in being tossed around. That’s why, if there is a road in front of me where I know the destination and another where I don’t, I always choose the latter. In this way, I want to continue to be someone who aims for the unknown.”
The conversation returns once again to the photo exhibition Before Us in early summer 2023. In fact, for this exhibition, the photographs were printed on tarpaulin, a canvas fabric coated with tar.
“It is a material that is also used for banners and the like, and unlike regular film-printed paper, it is easier to recycle, which is why we chose it this time. Despite its size, it can be rolled up for storage, and since it’s made of waterproof material, it’s resistant to dirt. Even if it gets dirty, it can be wiped off.
So maybe it would be good to keep the photographs and hold another exhibition here in 100 years. Of course, I will be gone. By that time, my intention will have completely disappeared, and the photographs will show scenes that are completely different from what they are now.”
Written: Akihiro Tajima, Photograph: Midori Shimamura
◆Shuhei Hatano
Graduated from Department of Moving Images and Performing Arts, Tama Art University. His representative works include TRAIL (2012, EUROSPACE), Origin of Shadows (2017, Tokyo Documentary Film Festival 2018), and I Remember (2021, Yogyakarta International Documentary Film Festival 2022 Best International Feature-length Documentary Award).
Related website
Shuhei Hatano Official: http://shuheihatano.com/
Shuhei Hatano Photo Collection Before Us (DOOKS): https://www.dooks.info/work/published/285_Shuhei_Hatano.html
Shuhei Hatano Photo Exhibition Before Us vol.2
Site
TOKTO SQUARE GARDEN (1st floor office entrance Tokyo Square Garden, 3-1-1 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku)
Period
Friday, July 14th, 2023 – Friday, September 1st, 2023 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Closed on
*Saturdays, Sundays, and public holidays
Admission fee
Free