The title of my collage is “Japonism”. The idea of this assignment came from the time when I was organising photos taken in Japan. Since the country itself has vivid, various aspects to discover and enjoy, I decided to use my own photos as the material of the collage, and naturally, the title of my collage became “Japonism”–the word is about how foreigners understand Japanese culture, as well as how it influences us.
Firstly I chose the photographic materials I had from the photo album, then I finished the draft due to the expressions of each image. Additionally, I found to web images to illustrate the topic clearly: the portraits of my favourite Japanese author Yukio. Mishima and two women in Taishō era. They represent different time and styles of Japan–Mishima represents the conservative, morbid beauty, and Taishō generation represents a democratic, liberal time period of Japan.
Similarly, I used the other pair of contradictory images to reach the goal of “vivid Japonism”–the images of Ōsaka Castle of Tokyo Tower demonstrate ancient and modern Japan separately, and they express that this country has it s various charm as always.I used 4 images as my background: the images of Mountain Fuji, the cherry blossoms, the Kanagawa Wave and Japanese newspaper in Shouwa era. Comparatively, they become the symbols when we think about Japan. Based on this fact, to make another contrast, I took the sign of Akihabara Station, too. As the centre of Japanese animation and media industry, slowly it has taken an essential role in Japanese pop culture. Thus, the Akihabara Station is considered as the new symbol of modern Japan.
The main background music I chose is the song written by Ringo. Sheena, the musical director of 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. She describes the modern Tokyo by this off-vocal song, and the element she uses also includes traditional Japanese music melodies and instruments.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed the process of make a collage by coding–although using photoshop to cut and remake images during coding was really tough and time-consuming, I think it is still a wonderful, challenging assignment for me to finish; the collage itself arises my thoughts about “Japonism” again as well.
