hamachi

刃区、はまち、hamachi: Japanese; a) indicates a wee step at the Japanese sword that is the passage from the sharp blade to the tang; b) Japanese amberjack or yellowtail, (Ocyurus chrysurus), a fish in the family Carangidae; c) is a zero-configuration virtual private network (VPN) on the internet

Already on the plane you can see faces covered by masks. Finnair provides native speakers as cabin crew. Even after ten hours the sanitary areas seem to be unused. Waiting for an adventurous encounter with foreign culture you finally realize that the clash won´t happen. The changeover to the other cultural sphere takes place like a dive into numerous individual meetings - the first photos are taken.

Hamachi is about private situations and suburban scenes from the standpoint of an observer. The abandonment of reproducing the commonly known clichés becomes apparent. The focus rather lies in the visual results of the dispute between the personal, inner- and the real, outer world. Like a fish jumping through the air you experience the short shifts between the spheres, the ephemeral breach of membranes. Memories of the experience in the outside world stay. These memories start a dialogue with your own expectations and generate a change of perspective in the next situation. Following the dramaturgy of Hamachi, you experience a process of active discovery.

Detailed, apparently staged situations of marvelous-looking scenes are detected on the way through public space. They mark the beginning of the photographic dispute, like points of crystallization. Full of expectations, perception spreads itself concentrically out and penetrates concrete as well as immaterial boundaries of spaces. Positions on the inside and outside, which seemed clear in the beginning, become more and more indeterminable. And eventually, the social potentials of the urban area are sensitively fathomed in the field of tension between the group and the individual.

From the often certain culture shock, which the impotent guest is supposed to suffer in every nook and corner of Japan, there is nothing to be found in Hamachi. Well aware of the sheer pointlessness in understanding Japanese culture completely, you are provided with an approach for a promising encounter. This culminates in a greater awareness.