The elephant in the room

Since 2015, I have been photographing and picking up on the vague anxieties of people living in the city of Tokyo. People in the city are scrolling through the screens of their smartphones in their hands, searching for something. When Covid-19 was sweeping the world, many of the people interviewed on street news said they wanted to return to a normal life. Perhaps everyone believed that once the furor died down, there would be a natural shift to a new lifestyle. I took my camera out into the city and headed for the train station. As usual, the disparity and division in people's lives continues to widen. Problems are not easily brought to the surface. Even when someone speaks out, they are silenced. Is this the "peaceful life" we had hoped for? I created this series with an awareness of "something" that can be seen by reexamining the hard-to-see parts of the collaged and layered photographs. The Japanese word for "miteminaihuri" is "elephant in the room" in English. Many Japanese people notice the elephant in the room. I would like to ask many people what an elephant means to you.