'YAKUZA’ is a personal visual account by Belgian photographer Anton Kusters of the life of the in-accessible crime family who controls the streets in the heart of Tokyo, Japan. After 10 months of painstaking negotiations Kusters became one of the only westerners to be granted this kind of access to one of the world’s closest and most secret organised crime syndicates.

Through a mixed media presentation of photography, video and text Kusters shares the complexity of their relationship with Japanese society and also shows the personal struggle of the YAKUZA individuals living in two different worlds – the normal family existence and their violent criminal world, very often with conflicting morals and values.

Over a span of two years Anton Kusters recorded the life of the Japanese gangsters through photography, film and text. Just like the popular soap The Soprano’s, members of the Yakuza have normal lives and families laced with rituals, crime and strange habits unique to their own clan. Anton Kusters explores YAKUZA’s ambiguous relationship with society and shadows the individual members who struggle with their existence in these two opposite worlds, not easily expressed in black and white but rather in many shades of grey.

Preparations for YAKUZA started in 2008, and Kusters started on his photographic journey in April 2009.

YAKUZA gained enormous interest from the press, media and photo festivals. Over 50 publications, both in print and online, magazines, newspapers and television, podcast and radio covered his project, such as BBC Radio 4, The Sunday Times, D Repubblica, GEO Epoche, El Pais, Dagens Næringsliv, Blurb, The Japan Times, Chasseur D’Images, Rencontres d’Arles, De Standaard, VRT - De Laatste Show, ELLE, etc.

-AO Vertical

Image: © Anton Kusters