While the 20th century was the "age of creation and innovation," with rapid progress in science, technology, and industries, it was also the "age of destruction and idiocy." Not mentioning wars, environmental destruction caused by over-hunting and fishing, deforestation,thoughtless land development, reclamation, mass-production and mass-consumption has come to the point of threatening the survival of our species.
I have come to think that we need to face these realities. It is pleasant to be nostalgic about the beautiful past and to look for a bright future. It is, however, necessary to realize to what point we have come so far and where we are standing at this turn of the century.
For One Hundred Years of Idiocy, I plan to select ontten by leading thinkers of the world. Each photograph represents idiocies committed by mankind against the global environment; all are indisputable realities. Those realities were captured by photojournalists. To pay respect to the photographers and the media who presented those photographs, I decided to use old newspaper to mount the photographs. There is one original version and distributed books will be copies of this original. The used newspaper signifies the age of mass-production and recycling.
What can we do for our survival and for the survival of future generations? We must stop and face reality to seek the answers.
We hope that this project may be one aid for doing so.