shashasha

“Disposables” is the first photo book by British-born Dan Bailey, a 16-year resident of Japan. Bailey began to use disposable cameras 10 years ago as a way to capture snapshots of daily life while finding a profound sense of poetry to their ‘disposability’ in a country where awareness of transience is an intrinsic part of the culture. Bailey selected 119 images for the book - the same number of plates in ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Hiroshige’s 19th century series ‘One Hundred Famous Views of Edo’.

“Disposables” not only finds commonality with some of the locations seen in that body of work but also in the themes and scenes that contrast the sacred and profane in the 'Floating World’. Opening with a volcanic landscape representing the geological bedrock onto which humans project the ideologies of a nation, “Disposables” journeys through seasons and traditions via ancient rites of passage and inner-city nightclubs in a meditation on Japanese culture and national identity.