The exhibition "Illuminating Landscapes: The Integration of Art and Science" is a collaboration between photographer Yoshihiko Ueda, designer Taku Satoh and the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo. Images from Ueda's extensive travels around the world doing commercial shoots and personal projects since the 1980s are displayed with comments from museum scientists from the point of view of their particular discipline. There are also samples and specimens on display, such as a vial of persimmon juice, a sliver of meteorite and a stuffed iguana.
The premise of the exhibition, as Satoh puts it in the very beautiful accompanying exhibition publication is to explore "art and science together, not separated, as is too common in today's world." Satoh sets this up by characterizing science as a quest for knowledge about the external world, while art is "entirely about our interior."
It's not clear whether Satoh himself really believes in this extreme opposition, but it's not an uncommon view. An exhibition currently on at the Science Museum in London, "The Art of Innovation: From Enlightenment to Dark Matter," is also showing art and scientific exhibits together in an effort to explore the idea that art and science are intertwined. In a recent BBC Radio 4 interview, Science Museum curator Tilly Blyth says that to separate them is a "category error." In the context that the art museum scene in Japan doesn't have a good track record in challenging the outmoded idea that art is primarily about self-expression, "Illuminating Landscapes" is a refreshing, if sometimes interestingly awkward, departure from the usual spectacle.