Japanese women photographers have long faced systematic exclusion from the art world, either being overlooked entirely or dismissed as too sexual, amateurish, or feminine by a patriarchal industry. A groundbreaking new anthology titled "I'm So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now" seeks to address this historical void by documenting women's significant contributions to postwar Japanese photography.
Published by Aperture, the renowned photography publisher with over six decades of history, the comprehensive book launched last summer at France's prestigious Rencontres d'Arles photography festival. The publication spotlights 25 leading Japanese women photographers who have shaped the medium since the 1950s, offering critical perspectives that challenge conventional narratives.
A complementary exhibition titled "Visions of Japanese Women Photographers Seen in Photobooks" served as a highlight of this year's T3 Photo Festival, which concluded on October 27. The show, curated by Amsterdam-based book designer Ayumi Higuchi, was presented at Tokyo Square Garden Art Gallery in Kyoboshi. A larger touring exhibition is scheduled to arrive at Shibuya Hikarie in July 2026.
The anthology takes its title from a line in a poem by photographer Rinko Kawauchi, whose work also graces the book's cover. Edited by curator Pauline Vermare and critic Lesley A. Martin, with essays by an international team of scholars, the collection represents decades of overlooked artistic achievement. Higuchi noted that Kawauchi's phrase helped define the exhibition's tone, emphasizing "togetherness and intimacy, rather than confrontation and aggression."
The T3 exhibition featured an impressive outdoor visual timeline spanning several meters along an exterior wall, chronicling photobooks from 1957 to 2020. The timeline began with Toyoko Tokiwa's "Kiken na adabana" (Dangerous Poison Flowers) from 1957, which documented women workers from pearl divers to sex workers during a period of changing gender roles. It concluded with Moe Suzuki's "Sokohi" (Glaucoma) from 2020, a poignant spiral notebook combining photographs and writings that captures Suzuki's experience caring for her father as he lost his sight to disease.
Inside the gallery, photobooks were organized thematically under categories including Family, Self, Gender, Society, and Tohoku Earthquake. The exhibition showcased both pioneering figures from earlier generations, such as avant-garde collagist Toshiko Okanoue, and contemporary artists forging new paths, including Rinko Kawauchi, whose bright, dreamy photographs are often paired with poetry.
Several artists from the anthology continue to be featured in ongoing Tokyo exhibitions. The Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (TOP) is currently presenting "State of the Artist: So Far and From Now On" through January 25, 2026, as part of its 30th anniversary celebration. The show includes works by Miyako Ishiuchi, Lieko Shiga, and Aya Fujioka, all featured in the "I'm So Happy You Are Here" collection.
Miyako Ishiuchi holds the distinction of being the first woman to win the prestigious Kimura Ihei Award for Japanese photography in 1979 for "Apartment," part of her Yokosuka Story trilogy documenting her hometown's occupation by a U.S. military base. The anthology notes that Ishiuchi has spent her five-decade career recording "the material traces of the passage of time." Her ongoing "Hiroshima" project, begun in 2007, photographs intimate personal belongings of atomic bomb victims and survivors - clothing, hair combs, and school bags now preserved at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
TOP's current exhibition displays works from Ishiuchi's "Hiroshima" series spanning from its inception to the present, including ethereal large-format color prints of tattered garments and newly photographed items donated for the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing. Ishiuchi has deliberately applied what she calls a feminine perspective to the series, stating her hope was to "transform the prevailing, postwar images of Hiroshima from black and white into color, from public to private, from abstract male gaze to specific female gaze."
Aya Fujioka, a younger photographer from Hiroshima Prefecture, takes a notably different approach to her hometown's history in her work featured at "State of the Artist." While Fujioka's photography often explores broader themes of human experience and serendipitous moments, both series presented in the current exhibition center on Hiroshima. Her "Here Goes River" series captures everyday life from 2013 to 2017 through seemingly casual shots of students, tourists, and citizens navigating the city. One particularly striking image shows Japanese schoolgirls striking synchronized, anime-inspired poses with the Atomic Bomb Dome in the background, appearing to fly jubilantly through the air - suggesting that life, while overshadowed by history, is not entirely suppressed by it.
Tohoku-based photographer Lieko Shiga brings a darker perspective to her work, never shying away from "the grisly face of modernity and those left in its bulldozing path." TOP presents a selection spanning her early through latest works from series including "Canary" and "Human Spring." A particularly powerful 2021 image shows what appears to be a nighttime junkyard but actually depicts heavy machinery relocated to a Fukushima mountaintop. These metallic remnants were rescued from tsunami debris by a man who felt sympathy for the machines, saying: "Someday these guys might save me. I could sell the iron, but rather than doing that... I let them rest here." Shiga notes in her exhibition statement that the man's actions reflect on "the unsustainable scrap-and-build ethos of our times."
Shiga's work can also be viewed at "In the midst of," a two-person exhibition with video artist Chikako Yamashiro at Artizon Museum running until January 12, 2026. While primarily known as a video artist, Yamashiro's work resonates with contemporary photographers, particularly Mao Ishikawa (also featured in "I'm So Happy You Are Here"), who similarly explores Okinawa's geopolitical history from an insider's perspective. Yamashiro's colorful, narrative-driven, and experimental style mirrors that of many Generation X women photographers, lacing heavy subjects with humor and hope.
At Artizon, Yamashiro presents "Recalling(s)," a six-channel video installation that weaves together memories of her father's life with other experiences of war, colonialism, and their lasting effects. Shiga's contribution, "Nanumokanumo, Anything and Everything," creates an immersive environment of images, sound, and sculpture that pushes both the physical and conceptual boundaries of photography. True to form, Shiga provides a visceral encounter with northern Japan's traumas, which serve as indicators of broader societal issues.
Like many of her peers and predecessors among Japanese women photographers, Shiga offers what can be characterized as a critical, humane, and urgent perspective on life lived on society's margins. These artists collectively represent a powerful counter-narrative to traditional photographic discourse, demonstrating how women behind the camera have consistently challenged established visual conventions while documenting experiences often overlooked by their male counterparts.
