Goro Miyashita
Windows_NY
22-29 March, 2019
Usagi Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition by Goro Miyashita. Entitled Windows_NY, the exhibition will run from 22 March to 29 March 2019.
Japanese photographer Goro Miyashita grew up along the Chuo train line in Tokyo, and continues to live there today. One night, he felt a strong fascination towards the familiar sight of people in the windows of the train.
He perceived the train window as a theatre space, and photographed the people through those windows as if taking a portrait. Thus the WINDOWS project was born. The work went on to be a prizewinner in the 2017 New Cosmos of Photography.
It wasn’t long before Goro had the idea to also carry out this project in New York. Walker Evans was sneaking candid shots inside the subway from the 1930s. Bruce Davidson illustrated the darkness of the city that he saw in the subway in the 1980s. Goro strived to create something new that is based on the two photographers, but is neither of them. The people who are living and breathing the New York of today. Goro resolved to illustrate these countless portraits using the frame of WINDOWS as a device.
The summer of 2018. Goro spent up to ten intensive days on location in the New York subway. It was then that he discovered something. Something that was simultaneously completely different and also similar to the people in the train windows of Tokyo. The people in Tokyo are, in a way, homogeneous and inorganic. They share the space well, and play the roles of well-behaved and morally-correct train riders. Sometimes within that, solitude and hope emerge like a candle has been lit. On the other hand, the people seen in the train windows of New York are more diverse. A variety of races, classes, and religions are jumbled together as if by random. With such a mix of different people, contrarily a single order or equilibrium is maintained. What spills over from that is nonetheless solitude and hope.
A boy stares out into the distance from the window, as if dreaming of the future. A worker fears losing their job tomorrow. Lovers gaze at each other as if already locked into a kiss.
WINDOWS_NY is a straight portrait of the people of New York that live in 2018. Moments of beauty where they just happened to be there together – at that time, at that place, on that train. These moments are permanent.
The WINDOWS project illustrates the diversity of people that are seen through the train windows of the world,
and simultaneously brings to the surface their common points.
Which country will Goro Miyashita visit next?
This is Goro's first private exhibition.