Thirty years ago, I photographed Tokyo’s streets, capturing fleeting moments and the rhythm of daily life. Hidden among the scenes were surprising details, yakuza and extreme-right adverts, that quietly reflected society at the time. Even now, these images continue to reveal new stories and lessons with every look.
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Tokyo Time Travel, Back to 1994
Revisiting Tokyo decades later became a personal journey through time. With only a few printed pages and sketches surviving from 1994, I recreated the story of the city by moving back and forth between the past and 2019. This “time travel” revealed not just Tokyo, but also insights into how we all live similar lives, thousands of kilometres apart.
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JUST FOR YOU:
Yakuza Adverts
30 year old pictures
– that that keep teaching me.
Some of the images I created in 1994 show, without me realising this, advertisements for the yakuza and extreme-right groups. A few years ago, when I showed my artworks to a Japanese friend, she pointed this out to me and suggested I should remove them. I chose not to, and here is why; These images with the adverts are part of the story, they capture how society was at the time, a different attitude or changed surroundings.
When I learned the truth behind this man on top of a bus chanting his words, surrounded by banners that carry messages of power and fear, a whole lot of other images made much more sense to me. There is one man seemingly listening with interest while others in the street glance at the adverts with disgust or try to ignore them entirely. These small gestures reveal our human behaviour, the ways we navigate what surrounds us, what we accept, what we resist. They turn the scene into more than a snapshot; it becomes a subtle lesson in observation, empathy, and social awareness.
Even after 30 years, these images continue to teach me. Each revisit uncovers new details. Gestures, expressions, and interactions I hadn’t noticed before. What once seemed ordinary now carries layers of meaning. The artworks are living fragments of memory, reflecting both the city of 1994 and the ways we see the world.
By keeping these images as they were, I preserve not just the city of that moment, but the human truths within it. Small, sometimes uncomfortable, yet endlessly instructive.
Read the blog about some of the other stories here.
