ñPhotography was repeatedly used as a means to explore and mediate notions of identity _ national, cultural, individual _ within Japan.î - Karen Fraser, Photography and Japan

This student-curated exhibition is a collaborative project that draws upon the comprehensive holdings in late 19th early and 20th-century Japanese tourist photography from the CollegeÍs Quaker & Special Collections. Using these images to study the evolution of the photographic medium in Japan„from representation to documentation and pictorialism to expressionism„students in the Japanese Modernism seminar have worked closely with the Special Collections and Library staff to provide a window into Japanese culture and society during the Meiji period (1868-1912), particularly how the introduction of photography as a new artistic medium mediated notions of identity during Japan's rapid modernization process.