Osaka-based artist Makoto Morimura was surely not alone last year in feeling that the newspapers were full of gloom and doom. But he probably was the only person who in response set for himself the task of searching for hope, literally.
Morimura began purchasing copies of Japan's most prominent English-language newspaper (The Japan Times, of course) and then used correction fluid to delete every letter of the alphabet besides "h," "o," "p" and "e." The results are 120 pages of newsprint scrubbed of everything but photographs and those four letters — and they are on display through June 3 at Tokio Out of Place, a gallery in Tokyo's Minami-Azabu district.
"Of course with the Great East Japan Earthquake in March, it really seemed appropriate last year to be searching the news for signs of 'hope,' " Morimura told The Japan Times, "But I actually started the project in January, three months before the quake. The mood in the country was already kind of negative back then, and there were also some things that happened in my private life that motivated me to do this."