Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) is holding an exhibition of photographs of the homeless, running till Jan. 27 at the Tokyo Photographic Culture Centre.

Founded in 1971 by a group of French doctors, MSF now operates in more than 80 countries. The organization is active in refugee camps, disputed territories and developing countries, but has recently expanded its activities to include assistance to runaway and homeless people. Working closely with other groups, MSF Japan began its work to help the homeless in 1997. The past decade has seen the number of homeless in Japan shoot up to about 300,000 countrywide.

Featuring 60 works by three photographers, Sayuri Ohkawa and Atsushi Shibuya of Japan and Bruce Gilden of the United States, this exhibition aims to help support and understand Japan's homeless.

Born in 1967, Tokyo-based Ohkawa began taking pictures of the homeless in Ueno Park in 1997. The first winner of the MSF Photojournalist Prize, she has since produced photojournalism from Malawi, Macedonia and Kosovo, where she documented lives disrupted by war.

Shibuya began taking pictures in 1996, when he spent a year in Brazil. After his return to Japan, he became involved in volunteer activities to support the homeless, and in 1999 he won the third MSF prize. The award took him to Kenya and Ethiopia, assignments for which he then won the Gold Medal of the Japan Photographic Society.

As a child, Gilden used to spend hours at the window, studying people on the streets. Today, his photographs of the everyday lives of those living in New York, Haiti, France and Japan have been exhibited worldwide. His awards include three U.S. National Endowments for the Arts Fellowships, the European Award for Photography and a Japan Foundation Fellowship. Between 1996 and 2000, Gilden traveled several times to Osaka's Kamagasaki and Tokyo's Sanya districts photographing the homeless, many of which will be displayed at this exhibition.