In-Between Spaces

Berlin’s Chaussee 36 Photo Foundation presents ‘Tokyo is Yours’, featuring images by Australian artist Meg Hewitt. The showcase, which is open from 18 November 2023 to 27 January 2024, marks the first presentation of Hewitt’s work in Germany.

Meghan Herwitt (b. 1973 in Sydney) studied sculpture, painting and temporal media, before taking up photography in 2010.

‘Tokyo is Yours’ is a black and white series created between 2015 and 2017, which shows the artist’s profound reflections on Japan, and addresses the country’s uncertainty and fragility following the Fukushima disaster of 2011. At the time, the nuclear catastrophe almost led to the evacuation of Tokyo, a city of more than 13 million inhabitants.

The exhibition title – ‘Tokyo is Yours’ – stems from graffiti written on the walls of the city. Between 2015 and 2017, Hewitt travelled to Japan a total of seven times. Every day, she spent twelve hours walking through Tokyo, exploring parks, bars, a waterfront promenade or the city zoo, as well as travelling to Fukushima. The resulting images are a study of the spaces in-between, of memories, relationships, and fear. The artist often works at night, photographing with a flash to isolate the subject from its context. This creates an extraordinary aesthetic of spatial compression that emanates a palpable sense of psychological pressure and unease.