Making of “I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now”

Join us at ICP to learn about the making of the book and exhibition project, I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now’s with two of the exhibition curators Lesley A. Martin and Pauline Vermare as well as writer and scholar, Carrie Cushman.

This program is being presented alongside Fujikina Festival. Register after reserving your Fujikina weekend pass.

Arrive early to see our current exhibitions I'm So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now and Laia Abril: On Rape and Institutional Failure, on view through January 4.

About the Exhibition

I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now reconsiders and expands on the history of Japanese photography through the work twenty-eight intergenerational artists from the 1950s to today. Presented in partnership with Aperture and curated by Pauline Vermare, Lesley A. Martin, and Takeuchi Mariko, the exhibition includes work Fujioka Aya, Hara Mikiko, Hiromix, Ishikawa Mao, Ishiuchi Miyako, Katayama Mari, Kawauchi Rinko, Komatsu Hiroko, Kon Michiko, Nagashima Yurie, Narahashi Asako, Ninagawa Mika, Nishimura Tamiko, Noguchi Rika, Nomura Sakiko, Okabe Momo, Okanoue Toshiko, Onodera Yuki, Sawada Tomoko, Shiga Lieko, Sugiura Kunié, Suzuki Nozomi, Tawada Yuki, Tokiwa Toyoko, Ushioda Tokuko, Watanabe Hitomi, Yamazawa Eiko and Yanagi Miwa.

Spanning photography, installation, photobooks, and printed matter, the exhibition explores the experiences and perspectives of women in Japan through delicate and blunt observations of everyday life, critical reflections on the roles inhabited and reshaped by Japanese women, and approaches that push the boundaries of photography. The exhibition is accompanied by a major publication (Aperture, 2024) that expands upon content of the show through essays, historical material, and a comprehensive bibliography of photobooks made by Japanese women.

About the Speakers 

Lesley A. Martin is executive director of Printed Matter. Most recently, she was the creative director of Aperture, where she served as editor on more than one hundred books on photography, and as founding publisher of The PhotoBook Review.

Pauline Vermare is the Phillip and Edith Leonian Curator, Photography, Brooklyn Museum. Previously, she served as the cultural director of Magnum Photos in New York, and curator at the International Center of Photography and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Carrie Cushman is director of the Bates College Museum of Art in Lewiston, Maine. She holds a PhD in art history from Columbia University with a specialization in the histories of photography and Japanese art. She has authored numerous books, including Human Marks: Tattooing in Contemporary Art (2026), Komatsu Hiroko: Creative Destruction (2022), and Going Viral: Photography, Performance, and the Everyday (2020). Along with Kelly McCormick, she is the co-creator of the open source website, Behind the Camera: Gender, Power, and Politics in the History of Japanese Photography.

 

Header image: Kawauchi Rinko, Untitled, 2004; from the series the eyes, the ears. Courtesy the artist and Aperture