I went to Japan for the first time in April 2016.
The purpose of my trip was to discover a country that had always fascinated me.
When I was a kid, in the mid-1970s, most of my visual references were Japanese cartoons and television series.
Japan was like a distant planet that made me dream.
When I returned from my first trip, the meeting with the publisher Benjamin Blanck was decisive for the development of the book.
He wanted to publish a book only with the first stay, because the result was already consistent.
But there were still some particularly interesting places that I could not visit in 2016.
And we agreed that another trip could complement the images we had in our hands.
My goal was to look at the country the same way when I returned to Japan in April 2018.
It was essential to keep the same freshness and the same curiosity, that sometimes escape us when we return to a country the 2nd time.
I have always had a great interest in Japanese culture, it is a country of contrasts between tradition and modernity.
The Japanese aesthetic is incomparable. I am also inspired by the excellent book by Jean-Marie Bouisson “Aesthetics of the Daily in Japan” which traces the history of this particular aesthetic.
The other book that accompanied me in this project, of a different kind, is the comics “The Solitary Gourmet” by Jiro Taniguchi and Masayuki Kusumi which deals with the history of Japanese society through the prism of gastronomy, as the director Yasujiro Ozu in some of his films.
During my trip, all these references have enriched my imagination. Then the narrative side of the images came spontaneously.
In general, if my work can seem very structured, especially by a frame often frontal, graphic and posed, everything is natural and spontaneous. I do not work with a photo stand and I only use ambient lights. What fascinates me is the image as a piece of reality.
I seek to bring out the everyday banality of a place, perhaps just a secret beauty to reveal.
And it seems natural to me to sometimes bring a human element. This gives a scale to the stage and enriches the narration.
Roberto Badin
Launch of the book “Inside Japan” on November 22 at 18:30.
Exhibition Photo from 22 to 25 of November 2018.
at the Galerie 7 rue Saint Claude 75003 Paris
From 11h to 20h.
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#insidejapan_project
