Street photography by VoidTokyo on full display in Ginza

VoidTokyo is an 11-member photo collective founded in 2017 by street photographer Tatsuo Suzuki that is committed to printing the photographs of its members to the medium of paper through regular publication of zines and exhibitions.

“I approached photographers who were interested in my work but mainly active on the internet without having the opportunity to exhibit or publish their photobooks,” says Suzuki, 58. “The idea behind VoidTokyo is to take pictures of Tokyo together and leave them on paper.”

“Because no matter how good the photo is on the internet, it just goes on the (Instagram) timeline and nothing (physical) remains.”

The group's latest exhibition, “Sharaku,” being held at HikoHiko Gallery in Tokyo’s Ginza district until July 30, features work from nine VoidTokyo members, including Hiroki Fujitani who passed away suddenly in 2022.

“We hope that, by exhibiting together, each member will present Tokyo in their own perspective. To glimpse parts of Tokyo from multiple perspectives,” says Suzuki of the concept behind “Sharaku.”

American-born Tokyo-based photographer, Joel Pulliam, 49, has been a VoidTokyo member since 2021. He says that the commitment to printing photographs and holding exhibitions convinced him to join the collective.

“What impressed me about VoidTokyo was the way its zines provide a physical record of Tokyo and the ways the city is evolving,” Pulliam says. “We regularly exhibit as a group. Generally, these exhibitions present our new work. For the ‘Sharaku’ exhibition each member has selected work from throughout their photographic career.”

Both Suzuki and Pulliam shoot exclusively in black-and-white, as do members Tadashi Onishi, Kawara Chan and Ash Shinya Kawaoto. Pulliam and Chan lean toward poetic distance and graphic compositions using human subjects as anonymous objects, while Onishi and Kawaoto tend to embrace the in-your-face, zebra-crossing chaos championed by Suzuki.

Chan’s work lies somewhere between Pulliam and the rest, making deft use of Tokyo’s ample infrastructure to add staccato patterns to break up her street portraits and people passing.

Members Johan Brooks and Takahiro Toh casually mix color work with black-and-white, using touches of humor throughout. Brooks flows easily from street photography to reportage, with his recent work showing the nascent signs of trading the street for photojournalism (he has recently begun taking photographs for The Japan Times).

Toh busies his playful frames with stripes and polka dot patterns, adding the occasional “one-line joke” in which punctum becomes punchline.

The promotional images of VoidTokyo give the impression of offering only aggressive black-and-white imagery. However, Tadashi Yamashita, Yukari “Unleash” Sasaki and Kenji Okamoto are the more color-focused of the collective, with Okamoto using deep color and light in Saul Leiter-esque compositions and Sasaki offering up a healthy dose of colorful flowers and tender moments to soften the edgier, high-clarity depictions of Tokyoites occupying familiar urban motifs. Yamashita, who seeks out characters to create colorful street portraits, is the only member of this particular trio whose work will feature at “Sharaku,” though.

While each member of the collective has their own distinct focus and style, there are some common recurring elements: zebra crossings, umbrellas and a gratuitous amount of attractive young women and homeless people. All are ubiquitous in the city and part of the collective’s photographic milieu. The greatest strength of VoidTokyo as a collective is its subject and location — the city of Tokyo itself.

“We continue to take pictures of Tokyo from our own perspectives,” Suzuki says of VoidTokyo. “It’s a city undergoing remarkable changes. With each issue and exhibition Tokyo is compiled from those various perspectives and accumulated.

“Every time I look at the work of VoidTokyo I can feel Tokyo and ask: What kind of world do we live in now? The members of VoidTokyo are working every day with the aim of helping to answer that.”