ARCHIVED Un/Masked: Gallery Talk with Naoto Yoshida

Date
Thursday 25 April 2024

Time
6.00pm

Venue
Aperture Gallery
(Basement level of Aperture UK)
17 a&b Riding House Street
London W1W 7DT

The gallery is accessible via stairs only. If you require special assistance, please contact in advance.

Booking Details
Booking essential - £6 per person 
Priority Booking for Members of The Japan Society until Tuesday 9 April 
Booking will open to non-members on Wednesday 10 April

Please note that spaces are limited and so early booking is recommended.

The Japan Society is delighted to invite members and friends to a gallery talk by documentary photographer and journalist Naoto Yoshida, whose first UK exhibition, Un/Masked is currently on show at the Aperture Gallery.

Un/Masked is a unique photographic project that attempts to visualise “invisible disabilities” by documenting and celebrating the everyday life of neurodivergent young people. By collaborating with those with these conditions, Yoshida explores a way to visualise what the world is like for them through their own perspectives, as a more ethical way of documenting people with disabilities.

Before coming to the UK, Yoshida wrote on issues surrounding disability and para-sports in Japan as a journalist. When he covered the challenges faced by young Japanese people with disabilities in their job searches, he had a sense of unease towards his own attitude as a journalist as he had to simplify the lived experiences of his subjects in his writing for the commercial needs in journalism.

In this talk, Yoshida will talk about the project on show as well as his own experiences of being a journalist covering disability issues in Japan that led him to pursue documentary photography. Attendees are welcome to arrive early to view the exhibition and for casual conversation with the photographer over sake and soft drinks. 

Naoto Yoshida (吉田直人) is an independent writer and documentary photographer based in the UK and Japan. Focusing on social issues in relation to disability and para-sports for several years, he has also co-written three publications. His subject matters stem from the question of what constitutes disability in our society. In his work, he explores collaborative and participatory approaches enabling those concerned to play an active role in the creation of a project, utilising digital and analogue processes. Yoshida won the Portrait of Britain vol. 6 (UK) and was shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize (UK) and Pitch Grant (Japan) in 2023.

Naoto Yoshida’s exhibition Un/Masked is curated by Sonoko Nakanishi and runs until 4 May. You can read the full press release on the project including artist’s statement here Un/Masked Press Release. 

Images: (left) Priyanka at Home with Their Toy Animals, 2023 © Naoto Yoshida; (centre) Untitled Polaroid by Reeve, 2023 © Naoto Yoshida/Reeve Hart; Crossing Arms, 2023 © Naoto Yoshida

If you have any questions, please call The Japan Society office on 020 3075 1996 or email events@japansociety.org.uk.

Co-organised with Aperture Gallery