Japanese Trades Etc.

A series of paintings and image transfers, with imagery sourced from Suzuki Shin’ichi I’s photo album ‘Japanese Trades Etc.', made available by the Getty Archive. The staged tableaus, which historian Terry Bennett refers to as ‘ethnic views,’ are assumed to have been commissioned by a Western tourist during the Meiji Era, a period marked by technological innovation, cultural fusion, and the dissolution of the feudal caste structure. These manufactured studio portraits are unique simulacrums, superficial depictions of a culture for those who do not belong to it.

Cayetana Suzuki is the direct paternal great-great-granddaughter of Suzuki Shin’ichi I. Using only oral history and one self-portrait of her ancestor, she was able to trace her ancestry to the archive, specifically, the photographic archives at the Getty and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Having not seen his prolific work before embarking on this project, Suzuki attempts to raise questions regarding the privilege of memory and orientalism, questioning how histories are preserved, distorted, or erased.