Last chance to see - Manga Dreams at Hamiltons Gallery

‘…these dreams we have documented, are they the manga-inspired dreams of humans or the human-inspired dreams of manga? Is this art imitating life, or life imitating art?’

Inspired by the youth culture of Tokyo shopping Malls, Manga Dreams, currently on show at Hamiltons Gallery, London (until 5 March) uses photography and graphics to create tableaux merging the make-believe world of manga with real life.

The project is the culmination of an idea first conceived by photography partnership Anderson & Low (British-born Jonathan Anderson and Chinese-Malaysian Edwin Low) on a trip to Japan seven years ago.

'We saw a huge visual change in the influences on youth culture and their manifestation,' explain the duo of the experience. 'We found that retail hubs such as shopping malls were now the epicenter for the expression of a new cultural phenomenon – youth tailoring their look to that of manga and anime characters. The impossibly tamed hairstyles and gestural elements in the clothing simulated our imaginations in a totally unforeseen manner. We felt as though we had been transported to a different world, a parallel universe populated by these characters.'

Taking their lead from the idea that what they were experiencing was truly 'life imitating art' Low and Anderson decided to use real models picked from the street, whose lives had been somehow influenced by the manga phenomenon. The resulting, powerful images are somewhere between performance art and street culture; works that, by blurring the divide between the real and the virtual, explore contemporary ideas of identity, culture and costume.

Hibiki: Resonances from Japan is a three day music festival of Japanese music and culture taking place 3 - 5 March at Kings Place in London. The festival will include a talk on music in manga given by Helen McCarthy, one of the contributors to Manga Impact, Phaidon's A–Z guide to the world of Japanese anime and manga.