I'm So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now
Now through Monday, January 11, 2027
The International Center of Photography – 84 Ludlow Street
The International Center of Photography (ICP) presents I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now, an exhibition organized by Aperture that highlights the extraordinary and varied work produced by twenty-eight intergenerational artists spanning post-war Japan up to the present day. This collection of historical and contemporary works by Japanese women photographers—many of whom have been recognized for their contributions while others have gone without substantial public recognition— weaves together three major motifs: observations of everyday life that are both delicate and blunt, critical perspectives on the social roles inhabited and often reinterpreted by Japanese women, and experiments with and extensions of the photographic form. Together, these works provide a foundation for the continued study, exhibition and celebration of the contributions of Japanese women to the history of photography.
Curated by Lesley A. Martin, Executive Director of Printed Matter; Takeuchi Mariko, photography critic, curator, and professor at Kyoto University of the Arts; and Pauline Vermare, Phillip and Edith Leonian Curator, Photography, Brooklyn Museum, I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now marks the first US presentation of a landmark exhibition that originated with the 2024 Aperture publication and accompanying exhibition at the Rencontres d’Arles of the same name. Since then, the exhibition has traveled to Fotomuseum Den Haag, The Hague, Netherlands; Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, Germany; The Photographers’ Gallery, London, United Kingdom; and most recently Hikarie Hall, Tokyo, Japan (Organized by Bunkamura). After its run at ICP the exhibition will continue to additional venues internationally.
©Rinko Kawauchi, Untitled, 2004, from the series the eyes, the ears
Artists Included in Exhibition
Fujioka Aya
Hara Mikiko
Hiromix
Ishikawa Mao
Ishiuchi Miyako
Katayama Mari
Kawauchi Rinko
Komatsu Hiroko
Kon Michiko
Nagashima Yurie
Narahashi Asako
Ninagawa Mika
Nishimura Tamiko
Noguchi Rika
Nomura Sakiko
Okabe Momo
Okanoue Toshiko
Onodera Yuki
Sawada Tomoko
Shiga Lieko
Sugiura Kunié
Suzuki Nozomi
Tawada Yuki
Tokiwa Toyoko
Ushioda Tokuko
Watanabe Hitomi
Yamazawa Eiko
Yanagi Miwa
Since the 1970s, Japanese photography has become the subject of numerous publications and international exhibitions. While recognition has primarily centered on male photographers, innumerable women have played a key part in the medium’s development, though their practices have remained largely underrepresented and underappreciated both within Japan and abroad. This restorative survey presents a wide range of styles and formal approaches used by photographers to respond to the experiences and perspectives of women in Japanese society more broadly, while showcasing their creativity through key images, photobooks and magazines, along with examples of installation, sculpture. and video. By providing a necessary and critical counterpoint to our understanding of Japanese photographic history, I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now also provides an electrifying expansion of photographic history writ large.
The sweeping historical scope of the exhibition shows how photography in Japan was used both to process and consider the rapidly changing nature of life throughout the country. Whether due to the post-World War II reconstruction and occupation by the United States’ military, the mainstreaming of political issues such as the women’s liberation movement, which advanced a radical restructuring of Japan’s patriarchal society or the rise of the pop culture industry, photographers were developing new thematics and formal strategies to confront the shifting ground beneath their feet. More than simply being part of the growing industry and culture around the medium, women photographers were crucial to the development and popularity of photography in Japan during this period, specifically with regards to color photography and in legitimizing critical approaches to the commodification of women’s bodies, self-portraiture, performance and more.
For more information, please visit ICP’s website.
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