shashasha

This third issue in the Medeia 2.0 zine series features work by the Japanese photographer Osamu Kanemura. In his work, Kanemura has centered, dissected and examined Tokyo as a perpetually-changing city whose concrete shape keeps being redefined through building, scrapping, and rebuilding. Through his black-and-white photographs, different printing techniques and the use of fold-outs, Kanemura’s series in Medeia 2.0 Issue 3 stimulates the viewer’s awareness and access to the density and commercial nature of Tokyo’s architectural landscape. Additionally, in the included essay Kanemura ruminates on the connections between capitalism, architecture, community and history on Japan’s capital (text included in Japanese & English).

“In Tokyo, a city where narratives of history and tradition have been abandoned, there are no linear, connected narratives; unconnected fragments are floating in the air as they were being tossed out … The real-estate sharks secretly active in Tokyo in the 1980s were indeed a movement that expelled people from Tokyo. They wanted to transform Tokyo into a city where people can no longer live. A city where people cannot live—this may have been the most radical form of city that capitalism has pursued.”
― from Osamu Kanemura’s statement