shashasha

Published in 2005 by Getsuyosha, Masato Seto's Picnic contains 58 images which playfully and intimately confront our most intimate expressions within thepublic space. Taking the densely populated metropolis of Tokyo, Seto focuses his attention upon the city's public parks. A refuge from the surrounding urban sprawl, Seto beautifully captures an array of stunning portraitures of couples,within the parks,situating himself in such a way which result in images that bind both our social intimacies within the marked out confines of created personal space. Covered faces,confronting stares to simply indifferent reactionsall reflect the captured subject'sengagement to Seto's lens wherethe cameraacts as anintrusion, almostalerting the subjects to the presence of a foreign body which hassuddenly crossed the invisible boundary of personal space. Captured in between 1996-2005 the collection of images reflect a sense of familiarity towards the viewer where the customary plastic sheet marks out a distinctively territorial and temporary ownership of public space. These familiarities provide viewers the opportunity tomomentarily engagewith our constructed notions of the public vs the private and our behavioral commonalities within those spaces, wherethe real doesn't exist, as critic Hiroo Koike notes, but "appearsin the relationships between photographsandviewers".