Hitomi Watanabe

Born in 1939 in Tokyo, Hitomi Watanabe is an iconic figure in Japanese photography. She graduated from the Tokyo College of Photography in 1968, where she unveiled her graduation exhibition "World of the Street Hawkers." This exhibition, of remarkable artistic sensitivity, was published among other works in the magazines Shashin Graphic and Shashin Eizo , where she became known for her photographs of the bustling streets of Shinjuku.

Involved in the Zen-kyoto student movement, Hitomi was the only photographer to have access to the interior of the barricaded university. She managed to capture the essence of this historic protest. Her images thus become an important and unique testimony, through their intimate approach, to this turbulent period of Japanese history. They form a historical corpus of the only female photographer involved in Zen-kyoto.

In 1972, Hitomi began traveling in Asia, visiting India and Nepal, and even deciding to stay there. Since her return to Japan, her photography has essentially been a spiritual document, serving as a message to the "Living Spirits."