Jacob aue SobolTokyo (SIGNED)

I came to Tokyo for the first time in the spring of 2006. My girlfriend Sara had 
got a job there, and so I decided to move with her to explore the city in which 
she had grown up. It was a society I had never experienced before, one which 
I had little knowledge of and to which I had no real sense of relationship. 

Initially I felt invisible. Each day I would walk the streets without anyone making 
eye-contact with me. Everyone seemed to be heading somewhere it was as 
if they had no need of communication. Most mornings I would take the Chuo- 
line from Nakano to Shinjuku, and even though the train would be packed with 
salary-men and school girls in uniform, I rarely heard a word being spoken. 

Though Tokyo and its people seemed unreachable, I felt drawn to the tight 
and confined reality of the metropolis. My feeling of isolation and loneliness 
was overwhelming it was something I had to find a way to change. And so I 
began taking my pocket camera out with me on the streets and in the parks. 
Rather than focusing on the impressively tall buildings and the eternal swarm 
of people, I began searching for the narrow paths and the individual human 
presence in a city that felt both attractive and repulsive at the same time. I 
wanted to meet the people, to get involved in the city, to make Tokyo mine. 

The pictures in this exhibition are a recording of what I saw and the people I met 
during the ensuing 18 months. 

In my attempt to try to understand Tokyo and its people, I found myself returning 
to the same streets and parks again and again. There were certain areas in 
Shinjuku and Yoyogi-park that always captured my interest, and inevitably they 
became the places that I felt closest to. I think that it was meeting the people 
there, on a one to one basis, that helped to give me a better impression of 
what it means to be a part of Tokyo today. 

Some of those I photographed became my friends, others I shared only a short 
moment with. The pictures are something that grew from these meetings 
pictures I took out of curiosity, and to help me remember how I felt that day, 
my experience of the city. When I photographed I tried to work by instinct as 
much as possible so as to connect and involve myself with the places I visited 
and the people I met. Taking snapshots supports the feeling of something 
unpredictable and playful. I believe it is when pictures are unconsidered and 
irrational that they come to life; that they evolve from showing to being.