Imaginary Japan

• Photographer
  Willj Vecchiato

“One evening Hélène asked him – What is this? – It’s a birdcage. – A birdcage? – Yes. – What for? Hervé Joncour kept his eyes on those drawings – You fill it up with birds, until some day, when something happy happens to you, you throw it open, and look at them flying away.” (Alessandro Baricco, SILK). A ghost hunt for those emblems that populate our idea of traditional Japan, “Imaginary Japan” is a voyage through reminisces of this Country representation in western art and mind before it evolved into today ultra-modern visionary nation. Trapped in a frenzy symbiosis with futuristic sceneries, glimpses of the Japanese tradition fleetingly emerge on the streets like shady chimeras of a vanishing past. The birdcage stands wide open, birds took flight. Only echoes of their song remain.