Visual Counterculture in Japan: Political Shifts and the Dynamics of Resistance

This book presents innovative analysis of emergent visual trends in Japan from the late 1960s to the present day. Adopting a thematic approach, this interdisciplinary text deconstructs the role that visual practices played in shaping a variety of countercultural discourses related to politics, gender, identity, sexuality, censorship, ethics and disasters. The book makes the case that visual practices do not merely function as a way to record counterculture, but that such practices are in themselves contributing to dynamics of resistance.

By considering a wide range of artists, photographers, film makers and practitioners, the book focuses on the way that visual culture transgresses, subverts or in the very least questions assumed socio-cultural boundaries in Japan. In doing so, the book foregrounds the crucial role that images play in our society today. Images are no just depictions of political shifts as and when they do occur, but they form part of this very shift in their own right. The book also highlights the interconnectedness between various visual practices and how they fit into wider geopolitical considerations on a global scale.