Nicolas St-Pierre
Photographer
Where have the birds gone?
The foreigner who visits Japan for the first time can hardly escape the unfathomable impression that he has set foot in a strange land. Underneath the surface of well-rehearsed codes of conduct, deeply rooted traditions and obsession with aesthetics lies an infinitely more complex and intriguing reality, one that can be a cause of unease, if not sheer anxiety.
After I moved to Japan in 2015, I spent countless hours walking in the streets of Tokyo. Almost every day, I was stopped dead in my own tracks by the sight of something that did not quite belong to the scene or, on the contrary, by the deafening silence of something that cried out to be there. The photographs presented here are part of a project titled “Where Have the Birds Gone?”, whose title occurred to me one day as I looked up at the sky and spotted an inextricable and inhospitable web of electric wires. The series constitutes my own attempt at rendering through photography the mysterious atmosphere that I have encountered in Japan.
Read MoreAfter I moved to Japan in 2015, I spent countless hours walking in the streets of Tokyo. Almost every day, I was stopped dead in my own tracks by the sight of something that did not quite belong to the scene or, on the contrary, by the deafening silence of something that cried out to be there. The photographs presented here are part of a project titled “Where Have the Birds Gone?”, whose title occurred to me one day as I looked up at the sky and spotted an inextricable and inhospitable web of electric wires. The series constitutes my own attempt at rendering through photography the mysterious atmosphere that I have encountered in Japan.