Hotel Fareast

Tokyo has many faces. One of its face is seen in a small area, formerly called "San-ya", inhibited by low-wage workers and the homeless. There stands a cheap lodging house open only to foreign travelers. Fascinated by the lodging house and backpackers it accommodates, I have been visiting the place for a decade, taking portraits of hundreds of backpackers from all over the world staying at the lodge. The portraits are expressive of conversations with them, and memories of their life stories. All that was left was a naked presence, and the aura that comes out of the presence, reverberating in the air, free from gravitational pull of their home town, and a pressure to behave differently when you are in a foreign country, in this case Tokyo. When that reverberation grabbed me, shook me, and resonated with me, I have suddenly come to know that everyone is a little piece of existence floating around the world. It filled me up with affection, and connected me to the world that suddenly opened up in front of me. A Mirror should be a window in the same time. We are traveling the space just like an Internet hub. Here we are in Tokyo.