The Tokyo Photographic Art Museum carries out various projects/programs to discover artists with great potential who challenge the possibilities presented by photography and imagery, to offer support to their spirit of creativity, and provide a venue where they can give a free rein to their imaginations to further develop their creative endeavors. Central to this undertaking is the “Contemporary Japanese Photography” exhibition in which we present the works of several artists on a common theme that changes annually.

This year’s event is the 15th in the series and its theme is, ‘Things So Faint But Real’, featuring artists who use their sensitivity or personal points of view, identity or reality as a key to create new works. Unpredictable natural disasters, the increasing economic disparity, the delay in passing legislature to cover LGBT people, etc., the instability of the situation facing individuals and the difficulty in discovering certainties is the ‘real’ upon which the artists have based their works.

Taken individually, these may not appear very large, but they provide us with the courage and hope to continue through these difficult times. In this exhibition we close in on ‘things so faint but real’, to each of the artists in order to explore their scope of expression.