Tokyo is not a place where one would expect to find wild, brightly coloured birds. In the 1960s, rose-ringed parakeets were brought over to Japan from Sri Lanka and India to be sold as pets. Some escaped while others were released, thus forming a feral population that spread all over the city. These birds became the subject of Mizutani’s captivating series Tokyo Parrots. Struck by his initial encounter with a few parakeets near his house, Mizutani chased them around Tokyo and soon discovered a large roost in a ginkgo tree on the campus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology where he saw the spectacle of hundreds of yellow-green, fluorescent winged creatures. Working at night with a bright flash, he spent over a year photographing the parakeets.

In Tokyo Parrots 023, the flattened plane of the image, the bright colours of the birds, and the linear arrangement of the power lines create a unique and disorienting perspective on the urban space. Mizutani was selected for Foam Talent for this series in 2014. In 2016, he collaborated with Issey Miyake Men for their Spring/Summer collection, printing images from Tokyo Parrots onto fabrics to create wearable art. Mizutani’s work is held in a number of collections, including the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts and the Baltimore Museum of Art.