“I think we need to notice that our society has created a violent environment, hurting the feelings of individuals and excluding them. I think it is not the attitude of hikikomori people but violence in society that should be addressed.”
Atsushi Watanabe - 2019 Images of rooms occupied by recluses scream out: ‘I’m here’, The Asahi Shimbun

The work I’m here project sheds light on a growing phenomenon called hikikomori. Hikikomori is a form of extreme isolation that has become a serious problem in many countries. The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare defines it as: a condition in which the affected individual refuses to leave their house, do not go to work or school and isolate themselves in a single room away from society for a period of more than six months. In Japan alone there are over 1.2 million people who have adapted this lifestyle, more than half of whom are 40 years or older. With this project Watanabe wants to bring hikikomori into the public eye without judging the people involved. He wants to raise questions regarding the issues that lead to this way of living.

Atsushi Watanabe himself lived as a hikikomori for 3 years. On the last day of his confinement he took a picture of his appearance and of his room turning his period in isolation into a ‘production period necessary for a photographic work’. Watanabe started recruiting photos of rooms taken by other Hikikomori. The photographs are proof of the existence of people who are not visible - testimonies of people and spaces that cannot be seen. In I’m Here Project, the visitor can look at them through a crack in the wall. In this way Watanabe keeps a distance between the viewer and the personal, confined space of the hikikomori.

Photography: Hikikomori people
Photo Direction and Photo Retouch: Keisuke Inoue
Grant: Arts Commission Yokohama
2017 - Photos on wooden panel, plasterboard, LED light

Image credit: Atsushi Watanabe Iʼm here project © Ashushi Watanabe

Atsushi Watanabe
°1978, Kanagawa, Japan

Atsushi Watanabe is a Japanese artist whose subject matter varies from new religions, economic disparity, homelessness, animal rights, sexual minorities, hikikomori to mental illnesses; themes often viewed negatively and as taboo by society. In recent years, Watanabe has worked on numerous projects with emotionally scarred people - often mediated through internet connections - in order to investigate hidden social issues, as well as his own experiences as a hikikomori. In doing so, his work tackles the possibility and impossibility of empathy between insiders and outsiders, and of the nature of social inclusion, as well as extending to themes of society, culture, welfare and psychology.
Watanabe graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions including: “Atsushi Watanabe” (Daiwa Foundation, London, 2019) and “My wounds/Your wounds” (Roppongi Hills A/D Gallery, Tokyo, 2017).