Seen: Anthropocene
Who: 長谷川 友里 / Yuri Hasegawa (website)
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: August 20 - September 1, 2019 / Open 12:00-19:00 / (Closed Mondays)
You may have noticed that for the most part it’s rare for photographers in japan to make work directly dealing with politics, society, or environmental issues- much of the work you’ll see (and I’ve shown) centers on the personal, which can be a bridge to something universal.
Yuri Hasegawa’s “Anthropocene” is a collection of photographs suggesting humanity’s influence on the environment- it’s not as straightforward as perhaps Western work on the Idea might be- and certainly the vagueness in her statement is Japanese in that it, unlike western MFA courses, does not explicitly state her goals or intention of the series. This isn’t a detriment to the work at all- rather by not saying too much it allows the viewer to think for themselves, unencumbered by Intentionalism.