This project explores the woodcut as material and collectable object and how its modality communicates across cultures and time. My research investigates the agency of the printed image, particularly the collision and influence of the Japanese woodcut with that of artists and early photography. The advent of the photographic image was at a time of significant social, scientific and political transformation both in Europe and Asia. The opening of trade between Europe and Japan in the Meji period (1868-1912) the transferability of ukiyo-e prints and their visual language, combined with artists' experimentation with photography resulted in new modes of depiction. Simultaneously Western input, including photography, influenced Japanese ways of seeing as cultural and creative innovations.