Masato Seto, Isolating Oneself in Full View

Is privacy inherently synonymous with isolation? In the series PicNic (1996-2005), photographer Masato Seto captures couples in Tokyo sharing a moment together, in public.

In this series, the artist, born in Thailand and now based in Japan, and former assistant to Masahisa Fukase, selected a setting identical to that found in the work of another famous Japanese photographer, Kohei Yoshiyuki, and his observations of voyeurs in Tokyo parks. The moment is fragile, as are the boundaries and the appropriation and sharing of the public space. By temporarily opening this space to the photographer’s gaze, these couples create what critic Koike Hiro’o describes as ‘invisible rooms’ in the text accompanying the series.

Constructing a moment

The 58 photographs taken in Yoyogi Park and the Futakotamagawa Green Area evoke 19th-century European paintings, particularly Luncheon on the Grass (1863) by Edouard Manet. In them, a reality is constructed, and this appropriation of the space by these couples materialises mainly through a plastic ‘picnic blanket’. Just like what the artist has been doing for over half a century, the PicNic series addresses the issue of lifestyle and how people adapt to their environment, outside of the frame.

The subjects were not given any instructions; their faces and expressions depend on how they wanted to engage in that moment, what they wanted to give off and the degree of intrusion they allowed. Some appear indifferent to the presence of a third party and his camera while others are not; it’s about the notion of boundaries. ‘That is exactly where I find the possibility of the “real” in fiction: in taking photographs’, Koike Hiro’o summarises.

In an echo of this series, that entitled Living Room presents portraits of Tokyo residents—Japanese or otherwise—in their home. This project resulted in the artist receiving the Ihei Kimura Award in 1995.

Masato Seto’s work can be viewed on his website and on that for the gallery he cofounded, Place M.