Japan through the eyes of women photographers
Kyotographie, a Kyoto photography festival, celebrates its 10th edition by shedding light on female Japanese photography. Taboos, prejudices, gender boundaries but also environmental issues are topics of the works.
'Zaido'
Devastated by a series of tragic accidents, Yukari Chikura followed a dream in which her deceased father appeared, asking her to go to a remote village in Tohoku. There she took part in a 1,300-year-old festival called Zaido, capturing it with her camera. "Seeing people fight again and again to preserve heritage gave me the courage to live again," she said of the experience.
'Sawasawato'
From 1959-84, around 93,000 people left Japan for North Korea as part of a repatriation program. Some 1,800 were Japanese women who had married Korean men. Noriko Hayashi portrays these women in her series "sawasawato." "I visited these elderly women, interviewed them, and took photos. I traced their memories as I traveled back and forth between Japan and North Korea," Hayashi (above) said.
'New Skin'
Mayumi Hosokura's digital collages compose a new world where distinctions of sex are dissolved. Her works use her past photos of male nudes and male museum sculptures, as well as selfies found on the internet and magazine pictures. "Not only in artworks but in our daily lives, gender might be a bit more neutral and connected closer," Hosokura commented.
'Eagle and Raven'
After a trip to Iceland, where she was fascinated by water landscapes and their unique lights, Ariko Inaoka started to photograph twin sisters she had met there, returning every year for eight years. They became her muses: "They told me ... 'We dream the same dreams together.' They made me think that even though we don't dream the same in our sleep, we share the same dreams," Inaoka said.
'A New River'
When the cherry blossom viewings that usually take place each spring in Japan were cancelled due to COVID, Ai Iwane captured the trees blooming in the dark. Her photos reflect the ambiguous borders between nature and human: "When I walk under the cherry blossoms in the dark, I often hear the voice of wild animals … the boundaries between human and nature became blurred," the artist explained.
'Ilmatar'
Momo Okabe's series Ilmatar — the name of a Finnish goddess of air — is inspired by her own experience. Okabe, who considers herself asexual, became pregnant through IVF. As fertility treatments become standard, she believes the process is worth recording: "Impossible things happen ... If we pay more attention to such things, and photograph them, life would be even more beautiful."
'Mutation / Creation'
Harumi Shimizu's series documents human fascination with mutations. Her work, an inventory of animal and vegetable strangeness, sublimates the weirdness and questions the concept of beauty: "People have long responded to mutant animals and plants. This kind of curiosity is universal to some extent. I want to know more about [it] ... so I collect these mysterious things and take pictures of them."
'Hojo'
In "Hojo," Mayumi Suzuki uses her personal experience of undergoing infertility treatment to talk about the complexity of women's bodies. "When I went to the market when after I gave up, I found … all these odd-shaped unsold things. I thought they were just like me. I wanted to express this vague feeling with my own body," Suzuki said.
'Die of love'
Hideka Tonomura explores relationship intimacy through blurry and sensorial pictures, thereby depicting her own "theater of love." Photography became cathartic for her while she was dealing with traumatic experiences: "I kept shooting to live, to keep me alive." Tonomura also initiated the Shining Woman Project, which sheds light on women fighting cancer and combats the prejudices they face.
'Negative ecology'
In Tamaki Yoshida's pictures, stunning landscapes and wild animals from the island of Hokkaido are eroded by detergents, shampoos and other chemicals contaminating water and environment. "I always believe the animal world and human world are both equal. Rather than invading or being invaded, it is best to coexist symbiotically. I think humans are capable of that," Yoshida commented.