Sights and Scenes on the Tōkaidō

Sights and Scenes on the Tōkaidō circulates knowledge about a particular place—a popular travelling route through Japan. The photographs, reproduced as collotypes, and their accompanying texts were intended for English-speaking armchair travellers who might never step foot in Japan. The photographs thus contribute to an “imagined geography” of Japan, much like other volumes in this exhibition contribute to an “imagined geography” of Canada. 

Sights and Scenes on the Tōkaidō recalls the nineteenth-century British photographer John Thomson’s Illustrations of China and Its People. However, here the pictures were taken by a Japanese photographer, Kazumasa Ogawa, who recorded features of his own home land and culture.