‘I longed for happiness!’ Kyotographie Festival in Japan | Culture

Kyotographie is Japan’s leading international art festival. Happening every spring since 2013, each edition has a different theme – and this year it’s “Edge”.

It is a topic broad enough to allow freedom in direction and to evoke tension in the 14 exhibitions at the main Kyotographie festival.

More than 200 pictures, 400 magazines and 100 books cover the walls and tables of the Daido Moriyama: Looking backand it still looks like it’s only looking at the top of the artist’s career.

Born in 1938, Moriyama was among a group of post-war artists whose work appeared in magazines and was later described by the style known as are-bure-boke (ugly, dull, unattractive). He is a photographer who always questions the meaning of photography and how it can be used. Now in his 80s he still takes pictures every day and publishes the Record magazine.

At the beginning of his picture making he moved away from the western culture of society to one driven by words and feelings. Japan in the 1960s was no longer under the control of the US, but the country’s presence was felt in many areas of the military and the spread of Western culture. Moriyama used his camera as a vehicle to drive this transitional period in Japan. His main approach tapped into popular culture and the growing political turmoil to create dark and atmospheric images.

One of the best projects presented here is a series created for Asahi Camera magazine in 1969, which every month questioned different aspects of the story. In the January issue, Moriyama looked at the aftermath of the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968 and, by filming a TV scene that showed an image of the assassination and drawing pages from newspapers, showed how the news story is linked to images.

For the April issue he took the telephoto lens, at the time a new tool, and placed it on ordinary, unsuspecting people. These images correspond to the cold film-noir and the terrifying image of camera surveillance and facial recognition in modern life.

Linder Sterling’s work is also carried in the magazine culture. He started working on fanzines in Manchester at the height of punk, when the main media meant TV and only three newspapers. Fanzines, which could be produced for little money at home on the kitchen table, were sophisticated and fun – and a way to show off one’s creativity.

Magazines – whether fashion, DIY or cheap porn – all had the same symbols: female bodies, which Linder cut and combined with images of household items, using surgical scalpels as precise tools, to create attractive images of women.

He also fronted the post-punk band Ludus and worked with musicians, most notably for the Buzzcocks’ Orgasm Addict album, in which a muscular woman’s body has a metal head and a mouth on her breasts. The image is simple and sophisticated and can be erotic and disturbing.

When he started to use his body in pictures he started a stage in the photo sessions where everyday materials like clingfilm, or pictures torn from magazines were used to create pictures that are like living collages.

Thandiwe Muriu is the African artist of the year. She uses bright and colorful cotton fabrics, known as kitenge in Kenya and popular throughout Africa, to raise questions about identity, culture and women’s empowerment. The patterns have hidden meanings – the so-called “eye of my enemy” is worn to show jealousy – so it has its own language.

His Camo series is displayed in an old wooden building where kimonos are made by hand. Camo women are dressed in kitenge clothes and stand in front of the back with the same look, so they are almost gone.

Muriu talks about feeling invisible to her community after abandoning expectations to become one of the few female artists in Kenya. In his paintings, pre- and post-colonial styles are seen throughout Africa and all the sitters wear surreal glasses that Muriu makes from everyday household items that cover their eyes.

I can’t help but be reminded of Linder’s images of women cut out of pornographic magazines with everyday objects covering their faces.

On the first floor of a small former warehouse is a dark room with the only source of light coming from an iPhone suspended from the ceiling. The phone shows Fatma Hassona, a young Palestinian artist in Gaza talking to the camera. On the other side of the video call was video producer Sepideh Farsi in Paris. He spoke for one year from 2024 to April 2025. Images from these conversations and Fatma’s photos led to the video Put Your Soul on your Hand and Walk. On April 16, 2025, Fatma was killed along with nine of her family members in an Israeli airstrike.

It’s a very powerful and moving experience to stand in complete darkness and watch Fatma, who is often smiling and has a positive energy, talk about life in war-torn northern Gaza – the dangerous life, the deaths of family and friends, and her aspirations and what photography means to her.

His need to show the world what is happening to ordinary people in Gaza is what led him to take pictures of the horrors. When Farsi asks if he wants to leave, his answer is: “My blood wants me.” The exhibit also features a gallery of his war photos.

A rare photograph of South African photographer Ernest Cole taken in 1969 is displayed inside the exhibition of his book House of Bondage. It was recorded shortly after his release, when he was out of the country and had just been banned from returning. He speaks directly to the camera, a young man – only 29 years old, tired and depressed. House of Bondage was the culmination of years of work documenting the real struggles of life under apartheid. It was also the first book by a Black photographer to depict the experiences of Black South Africans. The book was meant to be a vehicle for change, an absolute revelation that would be shown to people in power outside of South Africa, but it fell on deaf ears.

The exhibition is like walking through a book, organized by title, with additional photos, magazine covers and personal notes written by Cole. I admire the way he was a photographer – there is real beauty and warmth in people’s faces despite their circumstances – and the power of expression in his writing.

It’s hard to imagine what happened to Cole after the House of Slavery as anything other than a tragedy. He moved to New York where he tried to establish himself as a photographer, and received a job from the Magnum agency, but living in exile in a country with their racist culture must be difficult. Eventually he stopped taking pictures and became homeless. He lived on the streets until his death from cancer in 1990.

Also 14 shows at the main Kyotographie festival and 164 shows on satellite. KG+ festival, which includes a juried exhibition. The winner is presented in the main festival the following year. There are also talks, discussions and a book fair. Add to this a program of experimental music, which goes hand in hand with the shows and has spawned its own festival – Kyotophony – and Kyoto feels like it’s bursting with creative energy.

Kyotographie international art festival runs until May 17. Karin Andreasson went to Kyotographie after being invited by the organizers of the festival.