Photo: Meg Hewitt. Johnny, Golden Gai 2015
Photo: Meg Hewitt. Legs – after Daido, 2016
In March 2011, disaster befell Japan as the Great Earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster hit the nation in record time. Five years later, Japan’s prime minister Naoto Kan revealed that the country came within a “paper-thin margin” of nuclear destruction that would have required the evacuation of 50 million people – a feat he acknowledged was near impossible.
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As this science-fiction horror story played out in real time, Australian photographer Meg Hewitt began to imagine the density of Tokyo, the feeling of being trapped as a cloud of nuclear fallout spread, and the disturbing question of whether or not to trust the government and big business. For Hewitt, thinking was not enough: she needed to experience life in Tokyo for herself.
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Over a period of two years, Hewitt created a body of photographs inspired by the curious co-existence of darkness and light, trauma and innocence, death and life – which she crafted into the newly released monograph, Tokyo Is Yours. Hewitt combines the raw edge of Anders Petersen with the knowing glance of Daido Moriyama, the haunting glamour of Fritz Lang with the graphic traditions of Manga through a careful edit and sequencing that pairs unlikely moments to sublime effect.
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