The Photobook Cafe in London recently presented Provocative Materials For Thought思想のための挑発的資料 – Photobooks by Japanese Women: A Reading Room dedicated to the photobooks of 25 Japanese women photographers. The exhibition brought together a wide range of photobooks representing the work of photographers active from the postwar era to the present day.
In the aftermath of WWII, the rapid changes in Japanese society provided fertile ground for the rise of an innovative style of photography which radically departed from photographic conventions at the time. This period was defined by a proliferation in the publishing of photo magazines and photobooks, including the acclaimed collective publication of Provoke magazine (1968-1969) which has become both a landmark of this era and a symbol for photographic dissent from established canons.
Borrowing from the original subtitle of this publication, Provocative Materials for Thought honours its legacy whilst reconfiguring its meaning by promoting a critical interrogation of the narratives which have popularised Japanese photography as a male-dominated genre.
Provocative Materials for Thought is part of a recent collective effort to rewrite the history of Japanese photography to include its women. The reading room functions as an effort in speculating an otherwise archive. It seeks to challenge the erasure women have faced in the canon of Japanese photography. It is not a passive acknowledgement of the lacunae, but rather an act of building towards rightful recognition.
Exhibiting 25 Japanese women photographers and their photobooks arranged into four themes, the photographers’ work is situated within the genre, albeit acknowledging the fluid and sometimes arbitrary nature of these categories.
Photobook Cafe
4 Leonard Circus
London EC2A 4DQ, UK
https://www.photobookcafe.co.uk
