NEWS
Tokyo by night.
Greg Girard is a Canadian photographer who has been one of the leading artists documenting the changes in Asia’s great cities for the past 30 years. As a young man in the 70s, Girard was interested in the play of colour and light at night, a subject that reminds the viewer of the underbelly of the big cities he photographed. After living in Hong Kong in the early 70s, he travelled throughout South East Asia, and continued to document the many ways these countries, and in particular their urban environments were changing and developing. In order to mark the release of his new book, ‘tokyo-yokosuka 1976-1983’, Girard has offered the public a glimpse into some never before seen photographs from his time in Tokyo and Yokosuka. It shows us a city in the midst of a transformation, already booming and alight with changes, but not the hyper-modern, almost other-worldly city that Tokyo has become in the last decade. Girard took these photos during a special time of the night, after the last trains stopped running, and before the first trains started the morning. He was interested in what happened in the cities entertainment districts, and what people did during this witching hour. Girard’s work allows us to see a time that has passed, a pre-blade runner Tokyo, a certain nostalgia lingers in each image.