Tokyo is Yours

Exalted gestures, obscure figures and unusual settings, Meg Hewitt’s photography can be described as expressive. In Japan, and particularly Tokyo, the Australian photographer found a perfect stage for her photographic creativity. The often exaggerated poses of her protagonists; encountered on the street, in the underground, or at particular kinds of bars, are reminiscent of Japanese Noh dance performers, a tradition that interests her. Even pictures without people look like bizarre theatre backdrops: ventilation shafts crawling along like worms, a displaced-looking group of cranes made out of concrete, a house that seems to have eyes, and between all that an owl in a café.

Hewitt often incorporates local iconography into her pictures, such as wrestling posters and Sumo advertisements. In a similar fashion to photographer duo Caimi & Piccinni, Hewitt prefers to move in the underground scene and in private settings. She avoids slick, faceless Tokyo clichés like skyscrapers and masses of people. Her photography delves deeper, and this also has something to do with the way she works: “I have always been the kind of person that gets in crazy situations, I like to go with the flow and meet people and explore their ideas and ways of living.” In the process, she is always looking for the digressive, things apart that most people would simply pass by. “Many things in life are stranger than fiction and I feel compelled to try and capture them so as to explain them to other people or to revisit the moment myself.”