Thoughts of a Distant Window – TOP 30th Anniversary – Contemporary Japanese Photography vol. 22: Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

Haji Oh

30 Sep 2025 - 7 Jan 2026

Since 2002, the Contemporary Japanese Photography series has been held regularly at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum with the aim of supporting the creative spirit to explore the potential of photography and moving images, discovering promising artists, and at the same time introducing new artistic activities. In this exhibition, the 22nd iteration of the series, we present the works of five up-and-coming artists who focus on the small stories that emerge from our connections with things such as people, the passage of time, places, and customs.
In this era, in which we strive to embrace greater diversity and achieve a more inclusive society, imagination is vital for us to communicate and live with people who have different values.

While walking down the street, you may have had the experience of suddenly being drawn to a window, and sensing something about the person who lives inside, prompting you to imagine something about the life they lead. The window is a mechanism that transports us from the here and now to a distant world. As with imagining a life that we catch of a glimpse of through a window, artworks provide us with an opportunity to consider an unknown landscape or narrative.

It is our hope that your encounters with the photographs and moving images made by these five artists will encourage you to examine someone or something at some remove in a manner that recalls a distant window.

Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Yebisu Garden Place, 1-13-3 Mita Meguro-ku Tokyo