The title is a bit of a stretch, but
I had a chance to stop by Roppongi, and on my way back, I popped into the photo exhibition at FUJIFILM SQUARE.
On this day, they were holding a photo exhibition of the winning entries for the GFX Challenge Grant Program 2024. Quoting from the official website:
“This grant program aims to support the creative activities of passionate creators. As support for the production activities of the winning photography projects, five recipients of the ‘Global Grant Award (Grand Prize)’ receive a grant worth $10,000, and ten recipients of the ‘Regional Grant Award (Excellence Prize)’ receive a grant worth $5,000. Furthermore, GFX system cameras are provided free of charge as equipment for production.”
Winning projects were selected from over 2,500 submissions worldwide, so naturally, they are all compelling, high-caliber projects .
The project visible through the glass from outside is by Tsuyoshi Anzai. It involves taking super-magnified photographs of microplastics—a troublesome root cause of environmental pollution—using the GFX system and archiving the data. The stark contrast between the severity of the problem and the plastic’s innocent, colorful appearance is unsettling and creates an uneasy feeling.
The exhibition had a welcome policy allowing photography and social media sharing. However, as expected of carefully selected works, many pieces—including the one mentioned above—were quite highbrow, and I felt a bit worn out, so I decided to just glance through this time.
Nexroom, they were holding the “The Man Possessed by Sequential Photography: Edward Maybridge” Exhibition.
Eadweard Mybridge succeeded in taking the world’s first sequential photographs of a running horse about 150 years ago. He is said to be one of the greatest photographers in history, a pioneer of motion pictures and animation who analyzed all manner of movement by capturing sequential photographs of various human and animal motions. This included elucidating the previously unknown precise movements of a horse’s limbs during running.
Alongside explanations of his elaborate 12-camera photography setup, the exhibition features 21 precious sets of sequential photographs. As I recently started studying “Introduction to Video,” this event was hugely inspiring.
I apologize for the lengthy article, but I’ll continue just a little longer.
Since the venue was Tokyo Midtown Roppongi, I made a quick detour to the mall before leaving. There, I found the DESIGN LIVE Exhibition, featuring pop-up spaces inside the building displaying design and art works by various artists.
I snapped a few photos of pieces I found interesting and am sharing them here to liven things up.
This piece, though a bit hard to see, poses the question: “Why does the wooden rectangle hung in front stay upright, while the wire rectangle in the back, hung the same way with holes in the corners, tilts diagonally?” The answer is: “Because it has weights attached to the back, creating this effect. Have you noticed how many such mechanisms exist in the world?” Not having noticed, I was thoroughly impressed.
Did you think it was just a plain rectangular container holding a sake bottle? Actually, this container isn’t a regular rectangle. It’s a piece that says, “The moment you realize its true shape, that ‘Huh!?’ feeling where your perception warps is fun, right?” Yes, it was fun.
The reveal of the “true shape” is on this site.
And so, that wraps up my enjoyment of the photo exhibition and design exhibition.
