Where Have the Birds Gone?

Threatening birds perched on the top of a hill, a small boy being swallowed by a giant rock, a faceless train operator... During the four years that I lived in Japan (2015-19), I spent countless hours exploring on foot the streets and back alleys of Tokyo. Almost every day, I was stopped dead in my own tracks by the unexpected sight of something that did not belong to the scene, or the deafening silence of something that cried out to be there. Despite all the time and efforts that I had invested to learn Japanese and acquaint myself with the local culture, I was never able to completely shake off the impression that I had set foot in a strange land. The photographs presented in Where Have the Birds Gone? constitute my own attempt at rendering the sense of alienation, unease and at times impending doom that I felt while living in Japan.