Seen: Everything is Garbage
Who: Colin Barey / website / flickr / tumblr /
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: February 7 - 12, 2017
These pictures were taken by Colin Barey on a trip last autumn to his home state of Oregon. When one lives abroad (He has lived in Japan for the past decade), Americana as a concept or memory is something that you need to deal with from time to time. For him, the camera was the object with which he re-experienced his home culture.
Much of the political and cultural slug-fest which closed 2016 occurred after he had returned to Japan. Colin is a good friend and I have been engaged with these images since he first showed me the contact prints and then work prints. The election and its evidence of an America he felt alien to shaped his experience in the final edit and as he told me, the title of the show itself.
Neither of us are interested in the argument of whether or not photography can positively affect society but shows like this do help clarify the artist’s own vision of the world.
This isn’t self-absorption or a vanity issue at all- you are who you are and figuring out how to approach the gaps between oneself and society is sometimes all you can do. A cloud of frustration, bewilderment, disgust, and conflicting memories of nostalgia can be a powerful fulcrum on which to balance photographs.
I think this show operates as a good selection of photographs should- they clarify the feelings of the photographer. Of course the transmission of the same feelings is impossible and should never be the purpose of photography- nor the benchmark by which it should be judged. Photographs can suggest or hint, but due to the mental filters we all view the world through, never ever truly explain. It’s up to the viewer to figure out for themselves what the work means to them. I think that this series solidified the hunches Colin had concerning his home- the moments pictured illustrate the blundering inertia of the culture in which those seen in the frames exist.