Echoes of Oedo: The Keepers

In the summer of 2024, on one of the two Sundays a month the market runs, I walked the stalls set up on the plaza of the Tokyo International Forum: porcelain dolls, old ceramics, kimono silk, tin toys, the leftovers of other people’s houses. The market takes its name from Oedo, the old name for the city of Edo, and much of what’s on the tables is nearly that old.

I went for the objects and stayed for the people selling them. Again and again, the vendors seemed to have grown to resemble their stock. A woman whose obi hung exactly like the ones laid out in front of her. A man in a loud vintage jacket presiding over a row of equally loud tin toys. Weathered hands turning over pottery just as worn.

This is street photography with no bargains in it. It’s about how people choose the things they keep, and how, after enough years, those things seem to choose them back.