Yasuhiro Ogawa Photo Exhibition “Dream / Silence – Between Dreams and Silence”

Opening July 24th at Leica Gallery Tokyo: Two series weave together the resonance of dreams and silence.

Leica Camera Japan Co., Ltd. is pleased to announce that it will be holding a photography exhibition by photographer Yasuhiro Ogawa, titled " Dream / Silence – Between Dreams and Silence ," at the Leica Gallery Tokyo.

This exhibition will showcase selected works from the series "The Dreaming" and "Into the Silence" in a single space.

"The Dreaming" is a series comprised of monochrome photographs taken by the artist during his travels around the world over many years. Years later, when he looked back at those negatives, what remained before him was not a record of his travels, but dreamlike memories. The light and landscapes he encountered in distant lands, the rain and fog, the atmosphere of nameless street corners. These were real events, yet their contours changed over time, and they live on as quiet reverberations in the traveler's memory.

"Into the Silence" is a series born as an homage to Matsuo Basho's "Oku no Hosomichi" (The Narrow Road to the Deep North). Having been fascinated by Basho's haiku since his youth, Ogawa traveled through the northern regions as a person obsessed with journeying, confronting the local climate, seasons, and the passage of time in silence. What is captured in these works is not the landscape itself, but the loneliness, longing, and passion for life encountered along the way.

What runs through both series is a gaze upon memories that waver like dreams and the quietly flowing passage of time.

The title, "Dream / Silence – Between Dreams and Silence," embodies the artist's recurring themes of travel and a gaze toward silence. The exhibition space allows visitors to experience the resonance of dreams and silence, wandering and stillness, as they move between the two groups of works.

This exhibition will showcase original prints in which the artist himself was deeply involved in the creation process.

The light, landscapes, and sense of time encountered during the journey are brought to life as a single work of art through the medium of print. Please come and experience the rich tonal range and quiet resonance that photographs possess at the exhibition.

Photo Exhibition Overview

Dream / Silence ~Between Dreams and Silence~
Friday, July 24, 2026 – Sunday, October 18, 2026
Leica Gallery Tokyo, 2F, 6-4-1 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo. Tel. 03-6215-7070. Closed on Mondays.
*Dates and times may change depending on the circumstances.

Yasuhiro Ogawa deserves to be called a "wandering photographer."
Here is a photographer who wanders without pursuing anything specific, trusting that divine inspiration will come to him.
Although named locations are mentioned, the term "documentary" doesn't quite fit his work. Rather, it's more appropriate to call it "the gaze of a traveler who looks deeply at this country without falling into commonplace expressions." We travel with the photographer. It's a journey in search of something that can't be seen with a passive attitude, something that becomes visible only with time. There are no breathtaking landscape photographs here. What you'll find here is a series of small surprises that become visible as time passes.
A journey with an ambiguous beginning and end. Seasons and landscapes change along the way. Snow-covered mountains, misty mountains, desolate seas. Damp streets and rain-soaked forests. Faded gardens, gas stations at night, a curtain separating the outside from the inside. Travelers can be seen standing on the edge of solitude, lost in thought. The cawing of crows, the colors of autumn, a child intently drawing on a cloudy windowpane. People waving to passing trains. Straight roads, winding roads, empty landscapes. Shifting ghosts. Men, women, children passing before your eyes. Mysterious, yet strangely, patterns of color that blend into the landscape. Yes, what is here are words of a small question about traveling, and about the things that pass by.

Alain De Hoge (Director of Box Galerie, Brussels)

Yasuhiro Ogawa

Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1968. Graduated from the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Kanagawa University. Began photography in his early twenties, influenced by Sebastião Salgado. Since then, he has held numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. His exhibitions include "Uncertain Map" (Kodak Photo Salon, Tokyo, 1999), "Slowly Down the River" (Nikon Salon, Tokyo, 2006), "Winter Journey" (Doozo Gallery, Rome, 2013), "The Dreaming" (Blue Lotus Gallery, Hong Kong, 2021), "Into the Silence" (Galerie Sophie Scheidecker, Paris, 2023), "Silence" (Galerie 94, Baden, Switzerland, 2025), "The Flowing" (Buchkunst Berlin, 2026), and "Into the Silence – Lost in Kyoto" (box galerie, Brussels, 2026). In 2000, he won the Taiyo Award for his work "Uncertain Map," exhibited at the Kodak Photo Salon, and in 2009, he received the Japan Photographic Society Newcomer Award for his photobook "Slowly Down the River" (Cleo). He was also selected as a finalist for the 2006 Leica Oskar Barnack Award for his work photographing China.
She is currently an artist affiliated with Blue Lotus Gallery (Hong Kong), Galerie Sophie Scheidecker (Paris), Buchkunst Berlin (Berlin), and box galerie (Brussels).
www.ogawayasuhiro.com

[From Leica Camera Japan] Press Release

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