An excerpt from the free book Tokyo Blue on the meaning of the blue tarp: "Spend some time with this set of images, and you too will begin to recognize and be able to decode some of the great many shades of implication that reside in these humble objects, some of them quite subtle in their difference and all of them illuminating aspects of the Japanese psyche, or soul:
Shelter, in its registers of provisional Home and of simple protection from the elements. Property. This area is claimed. Transition. This place or thing is passing into, or out of, existence. Cleanliness, in the abstract, ritual sense. Understand these square meters as “floor.” (Remove your shoes.) The unclean. Dirt goes here, and not there. That which is meant to be seen, either as caution, as promotion (“Coming Soon!”), or as a sideways admission that whatever agency controls the site is pefectly aware of the problems it may cause for others. That which is meant not to be seen; camouflage, the disruption of contours, misdirection and distraction. A step further: Denial. This does not exist, consensually; therefore it cannot be seen. But also Negation, the positive presence of an absence. The delicate, that which must be protected. The abject. I could afford no better. The unforgivable." <end> I'll say. T
