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In April 2018, the legendary Kodoji Photographers’ Bar in Tokyo’s Golden Gai—a maze of dimly lit alleys, ramshackle buildings, tiny bars and restaurants in Tokyo’s Shinjuku district—hosted an exhibition by Sydney-based photographer Meg Hewitt. Kodoji has been a hub for both emerging and acclaimed Japanese photographers like Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki since the 1960s, and rarely shows the work of non-Japanese. But Hewitt’s body of work Tokyo is Yours struck a chord, described by Moriyama himself as ‘dangerous’.1
Tokyo is Yours (2015–17) marks Hewitt’s response to a prevailing sense of disquiet that emerged in Japan in the wake of the ‘triple disaster’ that hit northern Honshu in March 2011. As a result of the earthquake, tsunami and meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, almost 20,000 people lost their lives, 138,000 buildings were destroyed and economic losses were estimated between 22 trillion and 70 trillion yen ($626 billion). The disaster led to a process of deep reflection and uncertainty in Japan, which Hewitt sought to represent in her photographs. The title of her series comes from a graffiti tag that has appeared throughout Tokyo in recent years declaring in English ‘Tokyo is Yours’. Reflecting the openness of Hewitt’s work, this phrase has at least two possible interpretations—part gift to Tokyo’s inhabitants and part confident reclamation of the city after the disaster.
Hewitt took her photographs during seven short-term trips to Japan between 2015 and 2017. Spending up to twelve hours a day walking through Tokyo, she pictured small details that captured her attention and the people that she met. Being unable to speak or read Japanese, or understand the conversations of passers-by, ultimately gave Hewitt a sense