Daidō Moriyama. Eikoh Hosoe. Hiroshi Sugimoto. These are just a few of the Japanese photographers that have achieved world renown. Their celebrated works explore the rapid cultural and social shifts the country experienced in decades following WWII. However, the international gaze has been fixed almost exclusively upon male artists. The influence of women on the evolution of lens-based art in Japan has long been neglected. I’m So Happy You Are Here provides the first major platform for the work of 26 Japanese women photographers. They offer a fresh perspective on the nation’s society and culture, using their own personal experiences to question stereotypical ideas of women, gender and identity and critique patriarchal norms.
Tokiwa Toyoko’s groundbreaking images from the 1950s and 1960s show women in a variety of roles, from sex workers to nurses, challenging prevailing views of women in the workplace. Yanagi Miwa also examines stereotypes. The image Elevator Girl House 1F (1997) shows a group of girls dressed in identical red suits slumped on a conveyor belt. It is as if they’ve been caught in an unguarded moment, before they reach their assigned destination. Their matching outfits challenge the outdated idea that there is only one correct way for young women to present them- selves. “Suddenly I saw these women, who were continuously performing their role before the audience that is society at large. I became interested in women who had to act like robots reciting their given words and actions over and over in a ritual like way, and I decided to do a work based on this image,” the artist says.
I’m so Happy You Are Here | Fotomuseum Den Haag, Netherlands | Until 5 May
Image credits:
1. Okabe Momo, untitled, 2020; from the series “Ilmatar”. Courtesy artist and Aperture.
2. Yanagi Miwa, Elevator Girl House 1F,1997; from the series Elevator Girl. Courtesy the artist and Aperture.
