Personal Matters by Motohiko Hasui

Personal Matters is a collection of everyday snapshots by one of Japan’s most promising emerging talents in fashion photography. However, for Hasui, the personal matters more. Caught between emotional ties to his Japanese identity and an affinity to the West, Hasui captures his relationship to a place, Tokyo, and to the people who wander in and out of his life. That tease of longing for his other self outside of Tokyo is counterbalanced by the love of his wife, family and friends who are predominant in his environment. From page to page, Hasui is continually questioning his identity and place in the world, pitting his existential desires for Western ideals against his attachment to his Japanese heritage.

The result is an honest and personal documentation of contemporary sub-culture and fashion in Tokyo, through the eyes of a person who is in the thick of it, both physically and emotionally.

The book encompasses the transience and permanence of his personal relationships and the physical flow of existence in one of the world’s busiest and concrete cities.

Bound in faux leather, with a tipped on photograph on the cover, the book references Hasui's personal visual diary he has kept over the last two years, complete with page marker and elastic strap.

"Unapologetically private yet open, the work both reveals and conceals itself in equal measure...Rather than disclose all, or titillate, Hasui’s work is cunningly transparent. These are personal moments, but like most photographs their meaning is intensely personal. It lies on the surface, but runs deep."

- Adam Bell, Paper Journal

"A simple book with straightforward images, Personal Matters carries both an energy and a melancholy that are not necessarily divided along the lines of the cultural struggle..."

- L'Ascenseur Végétal