Europass by Victor Sira
Europass by Victor Sira
Published by Bookdummypress, Tokyo, 2025
Softcover, 128 pages
Dimensions: 7 1/2 × 5 3/4 inches
Published on the occasion of Victor Sira’s solo exhibition Europass (IG Photo Gallery, Tokyo, July 15 – August 2, 2025).
The exhibition presents images taken between 2001 and 2006 during Victor Sira’s train journeys across Europe—a pre-iPhone, pre-social media era that he describes as “a time when photography wasn’t yet an omnipresent reflex.”
The title Europass references the Eurail Pass, introduced in 1959 to provide unlimited rail travel across Europe. Like many young budget travelers, Sira relied on this pass, often waking in unfamiliar cities after overnight journeys.
Half-awake, he observed fleeting landscapes from train windows: strangers wrestling with luggage, lovers parting on platforms—scenes that reflected the intersections of travel and life. For Sira, a Venezuelan artist based in the U.S., this was a quintessential “voyage of youth.” “The train was my studio—a moving frame for Europe’s unwritten stories,” he reflects.
These works resonate with his photo essay Points of Entry (supported by the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture), which documented migration through Calais (France), Ceuta/Tarifa (Spain), and Moldova.
While Points of Entry placed migrants at the center, Europass treats people as fleeting figures within passing scenery. Many of the works on view represent Sira’s own mental landscapes.
—Kenji Takazawa (Photography Critic / Director, IG Photo Gallery)
Europass by Victor Sira
Published by Bookdummypress, Tokyo, 2025
Softcover, 128 pages
Dimensions: 7 1/2 × 5 3/4 inches
Published on the occasion of Victor Sira’s solo exhibition Europass (IG Photo Gallery, Tokyo, July 15 – August 2, 2025).
The exhibition presents images taken between 2001 and 2006 during Victor Sira’s train journeys across Europe—a pre-iPhone, pre-social media era that he describes as “a time when photography wasn’t yet an omnipresent reflex.”
The title Europass references the Eurail Pass, introduced in 1959 to provide unlimited rail travel across Europe. Like many young budget travelers, Sira relied on this pass, often waking in unfamiliar cities after overnight journeys.
Half-awake, he observed fleeting landscapes from train windows: strangers wrestling with luggage, lovers parting on platforms—scenes that reflected the intersections of travel and life. For Sira, a Venezuelan artist based in the U.S., this was a quintessential “voyage of youth.” “The train was my studio—a moving frame for Europe’s unwritten stories,” he reflects.
These works resonate with his photo essay Points of Entry (supported by the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture), which documented migration through Calais (France), Ceuta/Tarifa (Spain), and Moldova.
While Points of Entry placed migrants at the center, Europass treats people as fleeting figures within passing scenery. Many of the works on view represent Sira’s own mental landscapes.
—Kenji Takazawa (Photography Critic / Director, IG Photo Gallery)
Europass by Victor Sira
Published by Bookdummypress, Tokyo, 2025
Softcover, 128 pages
Dimensions: 7 1/2 × 5 3/4 inches
Published on the occasion of Victor Sira’s solo exhibition Europass (IG Photo Gallery, Tokyo, July 15 – August 2, 2025).
The exhibition presents images taken between 2001 and 2006 during Victor Sira’s train journeys across Europe—a pre-iPhone, pre-social media era that he describes as “a time when photography wasn’t yet an omnipresent reflex.”
The title Europass references the Eurail Pass, introduced in 1959 to provide unlimited rail travel across Europe. Like many young budget travelers, Sira relied on this pass, often waking in unfamiliar cities after overnight journeys.
Half-awake, he observed fleeting landscapes from train windows: strangers wrestling with luggage, lovers parting on platforms—scenes that reflected the intersections of travel and life. For Sira, a Venezuelan artist based in the U.S., this was a quintessential “voyage of youth.” “The train was my studio—a moving frame for Europe’s unwritten stories,” he reflects.
These works resonate with his photo essay Points of Entry (supported by the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund and Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture), which documented migration through Calais (France), Ceuta/Tarifa (Spain), and Moldova.
While Points of Entry placed migrants at the center, Europass treats people as fleeting figures within passing scenery. Many of the works on view represent Sira’s own mental landscapes.
—Kenji Takazawa (Photography Critic / Director, IG Photo Gallery)
