Art and Environment Seen Through the Lens of Politics in Japan

Abstract

This chapter analyses the changing diversity of politically and socially relevant interpretations, ideas, and opinions concerning the environment in Japan with a special reference given to visual arts and how environment and environmental issues have been dealt with in Japanese art. Politics involves constant reinterpretation and rearranging of everything around us. Art and especially visual images allow endless opportunities for reconstruction and to be used, recomposed, and combined rhizomatically. The art world in Japan has been directly influenced by the changing political and social context, but within the art community in Japan, power relations have deeply influenced what ideas reach the public. Politicization of environment and art has a long history in Japan as environment and art both are an indispensable part of Japanese society and history. Shaping the interpretations for them has always had profound political and social significance. Moreover, the digitizing and internet together have made the spreading of images much easier and have made visual images more important than ever.