No waiting

Martin Parr マーティン・パー

Small World

In collaboration with Magnum Photos

Scenography by Hidefumi Terada + Manami Matoba (tamari architects)

11:00–19:00 Closed on: Open Every Day

※ Admission accepted 30 mins before the venue closes.
※ Please note that the Martin Parr screening, originally scheduled to be shown in [11B Martin Parr | Projection Truck] as listed on the KYOTOGRAPHIE map, will now take place indoors on the second floor of the TIME’S building [10/11A].

Adult: ¥ 1,000

Student: ¥ 800 (Please present your student ID)

The photography historian Thomas Weski described Martin Parr as a “chronicler of our time.” Indeed, for over four decades Martin Parr has shown us his personal vision of the world, its changes as well as its challenges.
In his series Small World, Parr photographs the average tourist that we all are. However, his aim is not to capture the usual ‘vacation shot’; he is not interested in ‘tourist vacation pictures,’ but in picturing tourism itself. What he focuses his camera on is the gap between our shared mythologies of ‘must see’ tourist spots and their (sometimes rather disappointing) reality. We, the tourists, have magical pictures in our minds of the Acropolis in Athens, the Tower of Pisa, Machu Pichu, Mount Fuji, and so on. We imagine ourselves there, transported by beauty, alone and in awe of the majesty of the place and the uniqueness of the moment. Reality, however, is very different. We are not alone. We have to share these places with hundreds or even thousands of other tourists. We fight for a spot, queue for hours, get what we didn’t order, buy what we do not need, and try to enjoy what we are not really enjoying.

With Small World, Martin Parr presents us with a particularly cruel mirror. His statement on tourism as a form of modern ‘imperialism,’ on the ‘Americanization’ or even ‘Disneyfication’ of the world, is disguised in happy colors and humorous scenes.

Text by Andréa Holzherr

Prior to the festival, Martin Parr will photograph various locations in Kyoto often associated with mass tourism. This latest work will be presented at KYOTOGRAPHIE 2025.

Athens, Acropolis, Greece, 1991 © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos

Chichén Itzá, Mexico, 2002 © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos

The Artificial beach inside the Ocean Dome, Miyazaki, Japan, 1996 © Martin Parr/Magnum Photos

Fees 入場料

Adult: ¥1,000

Student: ¥800 (Please present your student ID)

There is also a special passport ticket that allows you to enter all venues once during the exhibition period. Click here for details.

artist アーティスト

Martin Parr マーティン・パー

Born in 1952 in Epsom, Surrey, in England, over the years, Martin Parr has become one of the most distinctive voices in visual culture, which enabled him to join the Magnum Agency in 1994.
Known for his use of garish colours and esoteric composition, he has studied cultural peculiarities around the world from Japan to America, Europe, and his home country of Britain, also making numerous trips to China since 1985. The themes of leisure, consumption and communication have occupied him for much of his career, all of which are explored with a penetrating irony.
Parr has published over 100 books of his own work and edited another 30. His work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions around the world. Over the years, Parr has received numerous awards including the Sony World Photography Award for Outstanding Contribution to Photography in April 2017, the Erich Salomon Prize in 2006 and the Baume et Mercier award in 2008 in recognition of his professional career and contributions to contemporary photography. In 2014 the Martin Parr Foundation was founded to support emerging, established, and overlooked photographers who have made and continue to make work focused on Britain and Ireland.