"caught up in an illusion" - andrew phelps

Yesterday I was at the Big in Japan exhibit at the Art Museum on Vokeciu Gatve here in Vilnius.  The aim of the exhibition is to display art by European artists "with Eyes on Japan" - most of these artists have been given scholarships to create art that brings the landscapes, people, and cultures of Japan to modern eyes.  The art was all very post-Modern and interesting - but what struck me was the following quote.  I can really relate to these thoughts, written by the  photographer Andrew Phelps (from USA/JAV), for his exhibition "Not Niigata".  Here is what he wrote:  "When traveling in a foreign place, I tend to be fascinated with both the exotic and the mundane.  The two are often one and the same, especially in a place where the gap between old and new is astronomical.  In most modern societies, tradition, history, and religion have etched a deep set of rituals and codes, which are being tested and expanded as cultural homogenisation begins to question established systems and ideologies...I find it is easy to get caught up in chasing an illusion of what I think a place should look like; preconceptions are powerful and the quest to understand a place often leads to a greater misunderstanding"  -- Sado Island, February 2009.   These sentiments were shared to explain to the observer that his photography was not an accurate description of life and land in Niigata, Japan, but the result of his own interactions and insights.  As a young anthropologist, I am often struggling to put preconceptions aside and really understand, and like Phelps, sometimes I walk away only fully understanding what it is not.