Tokyo
A brief tribute to my brief encounter with the neon-colored metropolis.
When I first travelled to Tokyo for work in 2017, I was frozen in awe. There is an overwhelming abundance of everything, so much stuff that it is hard to discern what is important. My wallet and pockets overflowed with receipts and admission tickets—there are no trash cans anywhere in public, so you are carrying around all of your trash until you find a receptacle. I was overloaded with information, entertainment, food and drink, so much so that I found myself staring at the sunrise from my hotel room window over and over again.
I would return a month later for a “second chance” to go easy and take it all in. Again, I left Japan with a suitcase full of junk—I actually had to buy a suitcase there just to get everything I had thrifted home. I left feeling as though I had missed something, I had forgotten something crucial to being there.
I went a third time in 2018, focused on being as mindful as possible. This time I avoided junk food, I limited my drinking, I didn’t buy and chain-smoke cigarettes as is so common there, especially in the restaurants, all kinds of people smoking their way through their drinks and meals. I went for long walks by myself, intentionally getting lost and taking photographs of everything that struck me. I went to the art museums and the temples. I ran in the mornings and, instead of partying, went on long walks at night.
What came of this triple approach to the sprawling, seemingly infinite metropolis, was no longer just pieces of paper and trash evidencing my journey, but a collection of memories had a lost, symbols out of place, and photographs to juxtapose it all.
I created a collage.