Notes From The Underground
harinezumi, NYC, 2011
This series was photographed in the New York City subway in 2011, using a Harinezumi camera. It is an exercise in observing movement, solitude, and fragmentation within an environment defined by speed and repetition.
The title borrows from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, not as a literal reference, but as a conceptual echo. In Dostoevsky's novel, the "underground" evokes a state of isolation, heightened self-awareness, and estrangement from the world. The subway, in this sense, becomes a contemporary counterpart: a place where individuals pass through shared space while remaining fundamentally alone.
Shot with a toy camera known for its imperfections, the images embrace instability, blur and noise as a way of mirroring memory itself, fragmented and subjective. Rather than documenting the city, this work attempts to inhabit its undercurrent: the pauses between stations, the in-between states of being, and the quiet intensity of anonymous proximity.