by InTrieste
A new exhibition at the Magazzino delle Idee in Trieste brings contemporary Japanese photography and video art to Friuli Venezia Giulia, offering a focused survey of artists whose work has helped shape the medium internationally.
“Japan. Corpi, memorie, visioni,” on view from Feb. 14 to June 7, 2026, features more than 80 works by 16 artists. Curated by Filippo Maggia and Guido Comis, the exhibition is organized around three themes — Memory and Identity; Body and Bodies; and Reality and Vision — tracing how Japanese artists have navigated history, social change and the shifting nature of images.
In the first section, photographers including Tomoko Yoneda and Noriko Hayashi revisit sites marked by political conflict and collective memory, blending documentary approaches with personal perspective. Naoki Ishikawa turns to the remote Okunoto peninsula, examining daily life in a region shaped by isolation and tradition, while video works by Miyagi Futoshi explore identity through intimate narratives.
The section on the body addresses gender, representation and cultural exchange. Yurie Nagashima presents candid depictions of family life, challenging conventions of self-portraiture. Ryoko Suzuki confronts the pressures faced by women in contemporary society, and Sakiko Nomura is represented by her studies of the male nude, reframing masculinity within urban Japan. Works by Aya Momose examine the friction and overlap between Eastern and Western visual codes.
The final section focuses on perception and time. Photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto, known for their spare compositions and long exposures, compress duration into a single image, blurring the line between document and meditation.
Together, the works reflect a photographic tradition that remains rooted in Japan’s postwar history while engaging with global debates over memory, identity and the instability of images in the digital age.
