Katrin Paul is making good use of her time studying photography in Tokyo. Full of intense Germanic energy, Paul observes the social environment of Tokyo from the perspective of an outsider in "Playing Summer," her second exhibition in as many months. A closer look at the Shibuya youth scene, the exhibition is the second in a series by Paul on specific groups of women in Japan.
The first show examined the lives of older Japanese women, in a frank series of relaxed, intimate portraits shot in the home and in the street. Paul spent a day or so with her subjects, and it is apparent from the photographs that they were comfortable and familiar with her. The reciprocal interest these women had in Paul herself and her mission is obvious, and it is this reciprocity that elevates the portraits above mere curiosities, portraying people whose way of life is fast disappearing in Japan, into something more meaningful.
"I was interested in their life stories, and how they remember their youth and the changes in Japan, and also how they see the young today. Most of them had arranged marriages and on the whole they were happy with their partners, and all said they felt peaceful and thankful for their lives. This was a big contrast with women of the same generation in Germany, who are on the whole bitter and really not satisfied," Paul notes.