I'm So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now at ICP

From October 15, 2026 to January 11, 2027, the International Center of Photography on the Lower East Side presents I'm So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now, a group exhibition of twenty-eight artists. It began at Rencontres d'Arles in 2024 and has since traveled to Fotomuseum Den Haag, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt, The Photographers' Gallery in London, and Hikarie Hall in Tokyo. The New York run is its first in the United States, and further international venues follow.

Organized by Aperture, the show was curated by Lesley A. Martin, executive director of Printed Matter; Takeuchi Mariko, a critic, curator and professor at Kyoto University of the Arts; and Pauline Vermare, curator of photography at the Brooklyn Museum. It grew out of Aperture's 2024 book of the same title.

The roster spans generations, from Okanoue Toshiko and Yamazawa Eiko to Ishiuchi Miyako, Kawauchi Rinko, Hiromix, Ninagawa Mika, Shiga Lieko and Yanagi Miwa. Some of these artists are widely recognized; others have received little public attention. The works include photographs, installation, sculpture, video, photobooks and magazines.

Three threads organize the selection: attentive, sometimes blunt observation of daily life; critical views of the roles Japanese women have held and reshaped; and experiments that stretch what photography can be. The exhibition places these against a changing country: postwar reconstruction and US military occupation, the women's liberation movement, and the rise of the pop culture industry. Women photographers were central to the growth of color photography in Japan, and to legitimizing critiques of the commodification of women's bodies, as well as self-portraiture and performance.

Works shown in the exhibition materials include Kawauchi Rinko's Untitled (2004) from the series the eyes, the ears; Ishikawa Mao's image from Akabanaa (Red flower), made in Koza, Okinawa, in 1975–77; and Yamazawa Eiko's What I Am Doing No. 77 (1986). The main entrance is at 84 Ludlow Street. The accompanying Aperture publication, with essays, historical material and a bibliography of photobooks by Japanese women, is sold in the ICP shop for $75.