Hitomi Watanabe: Tokyo University 1968-1969 – Behind the Blockade

Now one of Japan's most renowned photographers, Hitomi Watanabe began her career in 1968, just as student protests were rocking both Tokyo and the rest of the world. She befriended Yoshitaka Yamamoto, then-leader of the Tokyo University branch of Zenkyoto, one of the main players in the social turmoil of the day, and was allowed to shoot inside the barricades that the students had set up around Todai's Hongo campus. Her intimate images, displayed at this Roppongi exhibition, capture the tense calm and hopes for a better future felt behind the blockade.