Shot on the streets of Tokyo, Suto-ri- is the first video project by Dutch photographer Martine Stig (1972, Amsterdam). Awarded a three months residency in Tokyo, she went strolling the Japanese metropolis capturing everyday scenes with her hand-held video camera in the mode of a candid photographer. She then edited chosen fragments so as to intimate narrative continuity while remaining fundamentally open-ended. The flow of Stig’s images emulates the fragmented vision inherent to living in a metropolitan environment; it unfolds as a poetic ode to modernity and its way of seeing. Whereas Stig started this project as an experiment on the possibility of creating a mainstream feature on the basis of materials shot in a documentary fashion without actors and without production assistance, 'Suto-ri-' transcends its initial aim. Unaware or careless of Stig’s camera lens, passers-by lend themselves to become the manifold doubles of main characters in Stig’s film. They keep performing private gestures and personal dramas, careless of their public surrounding. In this way, 'Suto-ri-' interrogates the divide between the individual and collectivity, between the private and the public realms. -Catherine Somzé-