After arriving in Japan in 2022, I found myself surrounded by a completely unfamiliar environment and entirely unfamiliar people. I was constantly caught between a sense of novelty and a lingering unease. Even when I picked up my camera, I did not know what to photograph. The crowds on the streets and the carefully arranged scenery did not seem to belong to me, and I felt as though I were merely a tourist in this foreign land.
To be honest, I have never liked the feeling of being a tourist. I prefer to photograph familiar places-the wilderness and suburban landscapes where I played as a child. The overwhelming sense of foreignness and strangeness made me fearful of the Japanese landscape. I often joke with others that my “Japanese birthday” was in 2022, when I “was born” at Narita Airport in Tokyo. In truth, that is exactly how it feels. The time I have spent in Japan is like that of a three-year-old child; everything I see is new, untouched by history.
I have long tried to use various theories to explain this series of photographs, but the result is always an excess of explanation, with words that fall short. Perhaps these images are simply the first scenes I managed to remember in my new life in Japan-like the face of a parent that a newborn three-year-old child first imprints in memory.

Written in September 2023