Following the bursting of the Japanese economic bubble in 1990, the Japanese government implemented a stimulus measure by undertaking a massive national program of public works. It included enormous projects throughout the country: roads, tunnels, buildings, seawalls, dams, even river diversions. Designed, in many cases, to open up the relatively inaccessible and geologically unstable regions of central Japan for development, these projects were often of questionable use. Besides failing to lift the Japanese economy out of the doldrums, they also led to widespread corruption, environmental damage and a staggering public debt that has taken years to address.

Toshio Shibata had already begun taking photographs of human interventions into the Japanese landscape in 1983 for his ‘Quintessence of Japan’ series. Having studied painting in Tokyo and then Ghent, Shibata turned to photography while in Belgium in the mid 1970s. On his return to Japan, Shibata became interested in picturing the countryside, and found that black-and-white film and a large-format camera best captured the dramatic scale and formal beauty of the major engineering works that had begun to appear in the landscape. Set against forests, hillsides and rivers, the geometry of zigzagging retaining works, vertiginous dam walls and vast gridded nets is highlighted by the tight cropping of the photographic frame and the absence of human figures.

With the expansion of these construction projects during the 1990s, Shibata’s project assumed additional power and resonance. His photographs present the stark beauty of form — no matter how violently the landscape appears to be scarred, his images are never judgmental.

Through his focus on the alien but often exquisite aesthetics of these constructions, Shibata conveys something of the intricate relationship the Japanese have developed with their environment over thousands of years. One of the most densely populated countries in the world, Japan is small and mountainous, with limited arable land; available land is meticulously transformed, epitomised by terraced rice fields and immaculate farms. Curator Toshiharu Ito has said:

. . . Shibata’s expression of the existence of vast, boundless natural forces show the Japanese talent for highly precise work in action . . . That careful attention to detail and investment of effort permeate Japanese attitudes towards their lifestyles, the styles of their houses, their customs, and the very land about them’.¹

Yet, they also reveal a period when this relationship was thrown off balance, leaving the country with a surplus of over‑engineered and under-utilised infrastructure.

Onogami village, Gunma, Shibata’s 1994 photograph of a concrete water channel in central Honshu, is a key image in his ongoing exploration of constructions in the landscape. The extraordinary form of the channel, reminiscent of a gigantic quilt, flows down the hillside and spills outward at the base, following the contours of the ground. The layered panels direct the flow of water from melted snow, while the pierced surface of the precast concrete is designed to allow plants to eventually grow through and over the surface. Tendrils from an adjacent thicket of climbing vines have begun to creep over the channel, suggesting that the invasive structure is itself subject to invasion. The subtle dynamic between humanity and nature in Japan is imagined as cyclical, as represented by the changing seasons, and Toshio Shibata’s take on landscape photography continues this tradition as he reveals the cycle slowly turning again.

Endnote

1. Toshiharu Ito, ‘Archetypes of the landscape: Shibata Toshio’s “Quintessence of Japan” series’, in Motoo Hisako (ed.), Visions of Japan: Shibata Toshio, Korinsha Press & Co, Ltd, Kyoto, 1998, p.6.