Disjunct Collectivity: Women Photographers of 1960s – 1970s Japan

Abstract How can one grasp photographers’ contradictory roles both within and beside the emergent political and aesthetic collectives of the late 1960s to 1970s? Does gender even matter in the trouble that photographers provoked in the collective practices of their time? This article takes as a starting point the work of Sasaki Michiko (1934 – present), gripping her camera on the barricades of Nihon University, and of Nishimura Tomiko (1948 – present), formulating an oblique and alternative photographic view of landscape alongside fūkeiron (landscape theory). Hardly known in their era of active production, both of these photographers have undergone significant positive revaluation in current gallery and publication practice. What does one see now that couldn't possibly be seen then, and how does this new perspective on their work deepen the understanding of collectivity and its blind spots and impasses? How do the failures of collectivity emerge as an alternative perspective on Japanese feminist artistic practice, especially when considering the individual and oblique explorations of these two photographers during and after the era of protest?