200th Anniversary of the birth of photography, 2026

WONDER Mt. FUJI

~ Connecting the Wonders and Inspiration of Nature with the Future Generations of Mankind ~

Photography was born in 1826 credited to the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.
And soon will celebrate 200 years since its humble beginnings.
With the advent of photography, artists were given a completely new media to express themselves,
and just two centuries later, it has become an indispensable element in the mosaic of visual arts.

The title for this project is “WONDER Mt. FUJI ~ Connecting the Wonders and Inspiration of Nature with the future generations of mankind” I have chosen Mt. Fuji, which is without doubt one of the most revered, climbed, and photographed mountains in the world and an iconic symbol of Japan. For millenniums artists have tried to capture images of this graceful mountain in sketches,
paintings, woodblock prints, and photos in modern times. Whether seen from far away, close-up, from the top, from the air, and at any season, the majestic Mt. Fuji will always be a source of great inspiration.

In a new era, where we humans are turning our attention to space and the creation of virtual realties,
it is more than ever important to maintain a solid connection to our home, planet earth.
Mt. Fuji could be such a symbol of an anchor helping us to keep our relationship with reality.

In this exhibition project, “WONDER” is the most important keyword.
With diverse photography by carefully selected artists and their interpretation of Mt. Fuji,
and by analyzing the insight of natural science, cultural anthropology and literature, the audience will understand and contemplate the relationship between nature and us.
This will be not merely look at our preconceived ideas about aesthetics, sense of value and perception of reality, but stimulate new thinking on how to preserve the environment and nature to be inherited by future generations.


OHTA Bernadette Naoko
Commissioner
WONDER Mt. FUJI

Exhibition

TOKYO
Dates｜June 1 – July 21, 2024 (44 days)
Venue｜TOP MUSEUM (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography)
Yebisu Garden Place, 1-13-3 Mita, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-0062
EUROPE
To be determined
Dates｜2025~2026

Conference

The 1st session: July 11, 2022
Venue｜The International House of Japan
5-11-16, Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106-0032 Japan
The 2nd session: May 13, 2023
Venue｜MCJP (Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris)
101 bis, quai Jacques Chirac 75015 Paris
The 3rd session: June 1, 2024
Venue｜TOP MUSEUM (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography)
Yebisu Garden Place, 1-13-3 Mita, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-0062

Photographer

  • © Gilles Pandel

    Antoine D’AGATA

    Born in Marseille, France in 1961, Antoine Dagata left France in 1980 and roamed the world for 10 years. In 1990, he studied photography at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, and since 2004, he has been a member of Magnum, a group of photographers.
    He has published many collections of his photographs.
    In order to get close to criminals, drug addicts, prostitutes, and other people living in the dark side of society, D’Agata sometimes has a relationship with his subjects and makes them into works of art.
    He says that he cannot separate the act of photographing from his work. He is always eager to learn about the world, He becomes an inhabitant of his subjects’ worlds, and photographs them as if he were stitching between desire, pain, hope, and despair. In recent years, he has been featured on the cover of the “New York Times Magazine” and “Guardian” for his coverage of the scene of the Corona Ward in a Paris hospital, and for the on-site coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

    2011 Niépce Prize
    2013 Book prize at The Rencontres d’Arles for Anticorps,

  • Sarah MOON

    After working as a model in the 1960s, she began her career as a photographer in fashion and advertising in the 1970s. She has worked for top fashion brands including Chanel, Dior, and Hermès, and in 1985, ten years after she began her career, she was awarded the “Grand Prix de la Photographie de Paris”. the “Sarah Moon 1,2,3,4,5,” (Delpire, 2008), an outstanding collection of her photographs. was selected as an outstanding photo book and won the “Nadar Prize”.
    A highly acclaimed filmmaker, Moon has also worked with poet Charles Perrault and Andersen.
    She has created fantastic and profound images. She has had exhibitions in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, Prague, Moscow, and other cities around the world, and has received numerous international awards.

    1984 “Clio Awards”, the world’s leading advertising awards in New York
    1995 Grand Prix national de la photographie, Paris
    2008 Chevalier de la Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, France, awarded by the French government.
    2022 “Hall of Fame” from NY Center of Photography.

  • TAKIMOTO Mikiya

    Born in Aichi Prefecture in 1974. After studying under Tamotsu Fujii, he began his career as a photographer in 1998. His representative works are
    “BAUHAUS DESSAU ∴ MIKIYA TAKIMOTO” (2005), which compositionally captures the Bauhaus Dessau, a German plastic arts school.
    “SIGHTSEEING” (2007), where he traveled around the world’s seven continents and photographed people gathered in the unusualness of sightseeing spots.
    “LOUIS VUITTON FOREST” (2011), an artwork created in collaboration with LOUIS VUITTON and more trees, founded by musician SAKAMOTO Ryuichi.
    “LAND SPACE” (2013), a series of works that depicts the Earth’s original landscape “LAND” and space exploration “SPACE” as a symbol of civilization.
    Recent exhibitions include “CHAOS” (Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris, 2018),
    “Architecture x Photography: Only Here is Light” (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 2018), “CHAOS 2020” (Myomanji Temple, Kyoto, KYOTOGRAPHY), Kengo Kuma exhibition “Five Principles of Cats for Creating a New Publicness” (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, 2021), “PRIÈRE” (Osaka Central Public Hall, 2021).

    Collection |
    The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (Tokyo), and others.

  • NISHINO Sohei

    Born in 1982 at Hyogo prefecture. As a student at Osaka University of Arts, he began creating the “Diorama Map” series, which is based on the theme of memory and is expressed as an accumulation of urban icons. Since then, he has consistently produced this series, in various cities around the world which is based on the method of walking around in a city on his own feet and manually collaging a huge number of black-and-white film photographs. His work has been exhibited in solo shows in Japan and abroad, in various group shows at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the Saatchi Gallery in London, and in festivals such as the ICP Triennial in New York. He was awarded the 2013 Newcomer’s Award of the Photographic Society of Japan, and was selected as one of the photographers in the Foam Talent Call 2013 by Foam Magazine, a Dutch photography magazine. A major solo exhibition was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in the fall of 2016.

    Awards |
    2004 - Osaka University of Arts, Graduation Works Exhibition: President’s Prize
    2005 - JPS Young Eye: President of Japan Professional Photographers Society Award
    2005 - Canon New Cosmos of Photography 2005: NANJO Fumio Excellence Award
    2005 - 2013 Newcomer of the Year Award, The Photographic Society of Japan
    2005 - Foam Talents Call 2013

    Collection |
    amana photo Collection / Jean Pigozzi Collection / Louis Vuitton / Saatchi gallery / Statoil Collection / Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography

WONDER Mt. Fuji Conference 2023
at Paris

TOKYO-GA, a collective of 100 international photographers, including Daido Moriyama and Sarah Moon, had successfully completed the ten-year project “TOKYO CURIOSITY 2018-2020” with exhibitions in Paris, Berlin and Tokyo.
It is now resuming its activities with the next goal of 2026, the bicentennial of the birth of photography.
With the social gap that has dramatically widened in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid development of AI (artificial intelligence), the value and quality of all human activities are being fundamentally challenged, and photography is now in a position to redefine its value and role.
TOKYO-GA has positioned the mission of photography as an important awareness-raising tool that contributes to building a new relationship between humans and nature, and is promoting the
“WONDER - Mt. FUJI” PROJECT.

In the first part, Naoko OHTA, founder and curator of TOKYO-GA, will present the works that will be exhibited at the Tokyo TOP MUSEUM, which is scheduled to be held in 2024. In the second part, Antoine D’Agata, an artist participating in this project, will present his own work on the theme of “JUKAI - Sea of Trees” created in Aokigahara at the foot of Mount Fuji, and will explain his experiences on site and the universe of his work.

Program

  • Part 1 14:00－14:30 Introduction

    Explanation of the purpose of the WONDER Mt. Fuji
    Introduced the works that will be exhibited in the coming exhibition at (TOP MUSEUM Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography) in 2024.

    OHTA Naoko
    Founder of NPO TOKYO-GA, Commissioner of WONDER Mt. FUJI

    She has organized more than two hundred exhibitions in Japan and abroad, including Tokyo, Kyoto, Paris, New York, Berlin, Miami, and Kuala Lumpur.
    Curator of exhibitions such as “L’art de Rosajin, génie de la cuisine japonaise 1883-1959” at the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris (2013) and TOKYO CURIOSITY in Paris, Berlin and Tokyo (2018-2020). In recent years, served as nominator for international photography awards and also received the International Award of the Photographic Society of Japan in 2022

  • Part 2 14:30－14:45
    Video messages from the advisory committee of
    “WONDER Mt. Fuji” and cooperating artist

    Mr. KITERA Masato
    Diplomat

    Former ambassador of Japan to France. He was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 2016. In 2023 appointed Commander of the Legion of Honour.

    Mrs. NAKAMURA Shoko
    Ballerina

    Artist participating in the WONDER Mt. Fuji (for the project of Sarah Moon)
    She was a principal of the Berlin State Ballet from 2007 to 2013, and then a principal of the Hungarian State Ballet until 2015. In 2015, she joined the K Ballet Company in Japan as a guest premier, and became an honorary premier. Now an independent ballerina

    Mr. Richard COLLASSE
    Economist / Novelist

    Worked in the French Embassy in Japan. After serving as Givenchy, he joined CHANEL in 1985, and is currently chairman of the company. Named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and Officer. Decorated with the Order of the Rising Sun, gold rays with rosette.

    Ms. Karin REHN KAUFMANN
    Art Director & Chief Representative of
    Leica Galleries international

  • Part 3 14:45－15:30
    “JUKAI (broad expanse of dense woodland)- Aokigahara, the forest of no return” by Antoine d’Agata | participating photographers:
    His personal experience at Mount Fuji

    Antoine D’AGATA

    © Antoine D’Agata

Press Conference

WONDER Mt. Fuji Press Conference June 2023
at Tokyo

Date & Time | Thursday June 1 at 18:00~19:00
Door opens at 17:30
Venue | FCCJ (The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan)
Marunouchi Nijubashi Bldg. 5F,
2-3, Marunouchi 3-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 100-0005
Tel: 03-3211-3161

https://www.fccj.or.jp/index.php/article/access-contact

WONDER Mt. Fuj

Secretariat

WONDER project C/o NPO TOKYO-GA
8-5-6-202, Akasaka, Minato-ku, TOKYO 107-0052
Tel: 03-5410-1277 / Fax: 03-5410-1278

Creative & Photography Supervisor

OHTA Naoko, Commissioner / Chief Curator
IKESUE Hiroki, Managing Director

WATABE Tomohiro, Art Director（Scenography・Graphic・web-design）
HIRAWATA Hisaaki, Art Director（Scenography・Graphic・web-design）

Photography Supervisor

KATAOKA Hideko Photo Director / Newsweek Japan
OGAWA Junko Photo Coordinator

Press Office

Noriko SILVESTA (Candlewick Inc)

Advisory Board

KONDO Seiichi | Former Commissioner of the Agency for Cultural Affairs
Richard COLLASE | Novelist, Chairman of CHANEL Japan K.K.
AOKI Yoshikazu | Chairman of The Photographic Society of Japan
MOGI Shichizaemon | Former President of Japan Arts Council
KITERA Masato | Former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in China and France
Karin REHN=KAUFMANN | Art Director & Chief Representative of Leica Galleries international
Steven LEE | Founder / Director KLPA

Contact

Please send your inquiries or messages.

Secretarist | NPO TOKYO-GA / KLEE INC
8-5-6-202, Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 Japan
Tel: 03-5410-1277 / Fax: 03-5410-1278
info@klee.co.jp