Tokyo Grid

Germany

“Tokyo Grid” was captured in a matter of seconds, from behind the glass of a skyscraper bathroom on my last day in Japan. As a Tunisian experiencing intense culture shock, I had spent days navigating Tokyo’s massive zebra crossings, rushing, camera in hand, overwhelmed by movement, light, and sound. Every crossing felt like a portal, like stepping from one dimension to another. It was always chaotic, fast, and overstimulating. But this moment was different. From above, for the first time, I wasn’t in the middle of it: I was observing it. The scene felt peaceful, almost silent. The lines below appeared geometric, rhythmic, perfectly structured. It was the only moment during my trip when I could truly see the crossing in stillness. This photo reflects my complex interaction with space and movement in Japan. It’s a paradox: what is deeply ordered and precise in Japanese society feels chaotic to me, simply because it’s unfamiliar, outside my comfort zone. That quiet moment of observation became a metaphor for how I experienced Tokyo as a whole: structured yet overwhelming, beautiful yet disorienting. These images hold some of the best photos I’ve ever taken, and they mark a turning point in how I perceive photography, culture, and reality.

I’m Yasmine, a 24-year-old visual artist and filmmaker from Tunis and based in Berlin. My background is in graphic design and filmmaking, but I started with photography, which has always been my way of observing the world around me. I’m drawn to urban rhythms, people in motion and interactions between cultures, populations and spaces. My work has been exhibited in various locations in Berlin and Tokyo, and it often explores the tension between chaos and order, presence and transition. Travel has shaped how I perceive reality and the way it's interpreted by different cultures, especially my first trip to Japan, which deeply influenced my approach to framing space, movement, and emotion in photography. I capture not just what a place looks like, but how it feels to be there in a particular moment. For me, photography is about freezing emotional truths in time and documenting our human history.