Hear from curator Skye X Zweben BMC '25 at the opening of The Western Lens: Anemoia in Japanese Tourist Photography, on display on Level 2 of Lutnick Library!

This exhibition of woodblock prints and photographs engages with Western desires for imagery of Japan's premodern past, visualizing the concept of anemoia, a feeling of nostalgia for a time one has never known. After Japan opened its borders to the rest of the world in 1853, tourist or souvenir photography became a flourishing industry for foreign and domestic artists alike and was highly influenced by the pre-existing stuyles and conventions of ukiyo-e. Much of the content and composition of these photographs used ukiyo-e as a template to help popularize this new art form. In turn, many woodblock print artists were influenced by the ways the photographic medium had come to be understood as a direct representation of the landscape.