[Exhibition] TOP Collection: The Dining Table of Tomorrow

I visited the "TOP Collection: The Dining Table of Tomorrow" exhibition, which is being held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography from July 2 to September 21, 2026. This "TOP Collection" exhibition is a recurring event that introduces the approximately 39,000 photographs and video works in the museum's collection from various perspectives. With the theme of the "dining table"—something familiar to everyone and therefore a place where one can easily feel a connection to others and society—what kind of perspective does this exhibition take, and what does it bring to light?

Exhibition Structure

This exhibition is composed of four sections: Room 1 "At That Time, At That Dining Table," Room 2 "Between Food and Region," Room 3 "In the Environment," and Room 4 "The Dining Table of Tomorrow," with all works unified by Japanese artists. In addition to photographs, the exhibition includes video works by Rinko Kawauchi in Room 1, Masaru Iwai in Room 3, and Tatsumi Orimoto in Room 4. Room 1 begins with a personal perspective on "food," and as one progresses, the focus shifts to a social perspective while simultaneously expanding the gaze from "food" to "life."

Room 1: "At That Time, At That Dining Table"

Here, works by Rika Noguchi, Mikiko Hara, Tokuko Ushioda, Shinzo Shimao, and Rinko Kawauchi are exhibited, with the composition centered particularly on Tokuko Ushioda's "Refrigerator" and Shinzo Shimao's "Life 1980-1985." The works of these two are displayed facing each other as if they were a pair, and in the center, toys and tableware used by their family, including their daughter, were laid out. Furthermore, the volume of photographs displayed is heavily skewed toward these two, making the entire first room feel almost as if it were an exhibition centered on the life of this family. Considering the balance with other artists, one might wonder if this composition was a bit of an excessive staging.

Nevertheless, in Shimao's gaze—not just as a husband but as a father—which captures his daughter herself or her traces in every photograph, one can see not only affection but also a sense of responsibility for raising a child. What interested me most was the photograph of his daughter, all dressed up, holding two pairs of shoes, looking toward Shimao, who was holding the camera, as she couldn't decide which ones to wear. I felt affection for the daughter who had begun to show an interest in fashion, and I felt that he had pressed the shutter with surprise and joy at this expression of her feminine heart.

Tokuko Ushioda's "Refrigerator" series, taken between the 1980s and 1990s, allows us to read various things related to the food of ordinary households in the late Showa period. For example, I couldn't help but make assumptions like, "There are no beer bottles, so maybe the husband doesn't drink at home?" or "There are many bottled side dishes, so maybe the wife works?" or "If you put breadcrumbs in the freezer, you can make delicious fried food without them getting damp," or "There's ice cream in a paper carton, so there must be at least two children." I felt a sense of nostalgia for the way families lived at that time. Just by looking at a refrigerator, one can read a piece of the social structure of that time. Her gaze toward the future, which led her to decide to capture such things in photographs through the refrigerator, reminds us that no matter how much time passes and how family forms change, life and society remain connected.

By the way, here too, Rinko Kawauchi's work was a video piece rather than a photograph, just like in the "Miracle of the Gaze: Adventures of Japanese Female Photographers" exhibition, and I wondered if it was a coincidence or for some reason. In this exhibition, her "Cui Cui" was introduced. This 13-year record of a family reveals the "hare" (festive) and "ke" (mundane) within the cycle of life and death, reminding us that Japanese food culture is closely related to these two sensibilities.

Room 2: "Between Food and Region"

Here, works by Ikko Narahara, Minoru Yamada, Ryuji Miyamoto, and Izuru Takeya are exhibited. Ikko Narahara shows food in the city, Minoru Yamada shows food in Okinawa, Ryuji Miyamoto shows food as an industry, and Izuru Takeya shows food from the land of Hokkaido and the sea of Okinawa.

Regarding food in the city, through the depiction of the storefronts of small restaurants and sushi shops, we are confronted with the fact that there are things we must not see or do not want to see that always accompany our use of dining out, by showing not only the front side of commerce but also what appears to be the back side of the shops.

From Minoru Yamada's "Holding Hands, Itoman Fishing Port," one feels not only nostalgia for the figures of parents and children who make their living by fishing, but in the context of this exhibition, it reminds us not only of where the things we usually eat come from, but also what kind of activities surround them. Also, in "Girl Working in a Salt Field, Yone, Tomigusuku," we are forced to see the reality, often forgotten, that food production always involves labor.

Among these, I didn't understand the positioning of Ryuji Miyamoto's Sapporo Beer Ebisu Factory series at first, but perhaps this symbolizes the "industrialization of food" that emerged in the modern era. Furthermore, seeing the state of the factory being dismantled in these photographs makes me think of the modern global food crisis, and I feel a quiet shudder at the many problems surrounding food today and its future. However, if his work is read as a "relationship between region and local food," this positioning is understandable. But even in that case, another important aspect, "industry," falls through the cracks. Incidentally, this brewery, which leads to the later Sapporo Beer Ebisu Factory, was completed in October 1889 (Meiji 22) by the Japan Beer Brewery Company. It was a modern factory built by inviting brewing equipment and engineers from Germany, and it is also a symbol of the modernization of the beer industry in Japan.

Room 3: "In the Environment"

Here, works by Manabu Miyazaki, Hiromi Tsuchida, Asako Narahashi, and Masaru Iwai are exhibited. Manabu Miyazaki's works capture how the habitats of humans and wild animals are connected and sometimes interfere with each other through food. From this, we are made to think about how we should face the fact that no matter how much we develop, distance ourselves from the threats of nature, and pursue comfort, the natural environment sometimes tries to push back at the slightest opportunity.

Hiromi Tsuchida's "Fukushima 2011-2017" series captures not only the collapse of the coexistence between nature and humans but also the state of reconstruction as they try to rebuild this coexistence, through fixed-point observation. The only disappointment was that the digital processing of the large, enlarged photograph of "Ashihara Cultivation-Prohibited Paddy Field (Ashihara, Iitate Village, Soma District, Fukushima Prefecture) A" was not of good quality and felt harsh to the eyes.

As described, this section shows the relationship between humans and nature in various forms, but it would have been more three-dimensional if the term "environment" had not been explained only by "nature," but rather by more directly addressing the environment related to food—the aforementioned industry, distribution, and the currently globalized "food."

Room 4: "The Dining Table of Tomorrow"

In this section, two video works by Tatsumi Orimoto are introduced. He recruits elderly people in Japan and Portugal and introduces the act of eating together as communication art. To finally converge the multifaceted awareness of the "food" issues that have been expanded by multiple artists in the three rooms into his positive practice of "eating together"—in other words, the answer to the diverse and complex problems regarding food shown in the previous sections feels too small. In the first place, will our future dining table really be sustained by gathering so many people in one place?

Why the "Dining Table" Now?

In the first room, the exhibition begins with the history of food during an era that evokes a sense of moderate nostalgia for us today, turns its gaze toward urban and rural areas, and even touches upon recent social issues. This structural narrative—moving from "food" to "living," and from personal memory to society and the future—is understandable. However, the depth and intensity of each section, as well as the connections between the works, which are meant to vividly convey this narrative, appeared weak. For instance, while the first room focuses primarily on the works of Shinzo Shimao and Tokuko Ushioda, the connection to the works of other artists was tenuous, making it difficult to perceive any expansion beyond the fact that the works were simply arranged under the single theme of the "dining table." Furthermore, although the fourth room's "Dining Table of Tomorrow" section touches upon "solitary dining," it lacked the development and intensity of works necessary to make the viewer feel its urgency, reality, and contemporary relevance.

Although there was a central axis of the "dining table"—with the first room featuring the "dining table," the second room "until it reaches the table," the third room "the environment that sustains the table," and the fourth room "who will we share the table with from now on"—the concept diffused into the overly broad notion of "food" along the way. While the axis of the "dining table" returned to the center in the fourth room, the questions and messages posed there became closed and narrow.

Precisely because it started from a place as familiar to everyone as the "dining table," I wanted it to provide a catalyst for thinking about where our society is headed and what it will connect to from there.