Shuji Akagi ¹ has recently published a book with Osiris ² that collects some of his photographs taken in Fukushima Prefecture after March 11, 2011. This is a strange book, and I’d recommend it fairly highly. (I am proud to say that I translated the book’s captions.) It can be purchased online through shashasha ³.

Later this month, Naoya Hatakeyama will give a presentation at the New York Public Library, as part of the “Shashin: Photography From Japan” symposium ¹. The exact date/time is Saturday, April 25, at 1 pm. There are a number of other good-looking panels at this symposium, but if you only had time to see one thing, this would be it.

There are a lot of other events and exhibits related to Japanese photography happening over the course of the year. I’ve gotten rather lazy about posting little bits of information about exhibitions, events and so on: this is partially due to a lack of time, but if I’m being honest I’m also losing interest in the idea of the blog as a conduit of information about Japanese photography. Just as the function of PH ² could be supplanted by shashasha ³, perhaps Stacy, who has put together a “master list” of Japanese photo events in North America ⁴, will take up the charge of collecting this information?

I can already feel the backlash against “Japanese photography” developing within this blog (developing within myself). I feel the impulse to change this blog’s title, though I will most likely leave it unchanged in order to remind myself of my starting point. But now that I’m back in the United States, I can start to make out my task a little more clearly, and it’s not so much about “introducing” artists, much less advocating for their place in the (Western) canon—this was probably my attitude for a while, and it seems to be where discourse around “Japanese photography” is at, when this discourse is not pushing Japanese exceptionalism of course. In this sense I look forward to the panels of the NPYL symposium—and dread the overarching tone of the event itself.