2021

Self-portrait.

“leave-taking” statement
– From “correct bodies” to the process of disappearing

Five years have passed since I made the series “shadow puppet,” “bystander” and “on the way home,” which together I refer to as a trilogy. These five years came with some significant changes in my life and my living environment, such as giving birth to and raising my daughter, and moving the base of my creative activities to what is in fact my first own atelier. It seems that these changes have also affected my work. When my baby daughter started crawling, I stowed away needle and thread for her safety, and after finishing the series “cannot turn the clock back – gift” I refrained from making new objects. Instead, I began to take photographs around the Ashio Copper Mine and the Watarase River near my hometown, and also in hotels on business trips. Meeting a trustworthy lab technician further inspired me to work with photographic film.

I also had my first solo show, participated for the first time in an international art exhibition, and published my first photo book overseas, all opportunities for directing my attention to the outside world as well as to my previous works.

I’ve always been acutely aware that I am able to create works because my body is alive and well, and I hope my body will continue to serve me. However, the more I go out into society, the more I feel the headwind of the “correctness” required of that body.

Taking my camera with the mirror it contains and pointing it at this “society” or “other people” as a mirror, results in an infinity mirror kind of situation. It appears to me that this infinity is where truth exists.

The world is made to fit “correct bodies.” For me, the objects I was making were substitutes for such a “correct body.” While my body’s existence is not valued by society, my artworks are appreciated. This has allowed me to feel that I’m just a mannequin in my photographs, there to promote my objects which are the actual “works of art.” In leave-taking #010, the light that slowly flooded my room during the long-exposure shots covers my objects like a veil of both love and hate. The love that enabled me to create them in the first place slowly turns to hate as their rising value as artwork estranges them to me, my body remaining without value to society.

In my daily life during these five years, however, I couldn’t really rely on my objects. (After all, they don’t do my work for me, and they don’t pay my electricity bills!) I guess it is through our body that we encounter everything that happens. This body is the only one I have, and whether I live or die has nothing to do with it being correct or incorrect.

The so-called “glare effect” occurs when opposing rays of light collide, making objects between them disappear. This is also similar to the infinity mirror effect. For me, the hope is now that doing away with the blinding idea of a “correct body” will clear the way for the light to travel straight and unrefracted.

“leave-taking” ステートメント
「正しい身体」から消失の過程まで

三部作と呼んでいる『shadow puppet』、『bystander』、『on the way home』の撮影から約5年経った。その間、出産や育児、制作の拠点を定め、生まれて初めてアトリエを持つなど生活や環境が大きく様変わりした。その変化は制作に影響しているように思える。子がハイハイしだしたら危ないからと針と糸を片付け、『cannot turn the clock back – gift』を最後にオブジェ制作からは遠ざかっていた。その代わり故郷近くの足尾銅山や渡良瀬川周辺、出張先のホテルでも撮影するようになり、信頼できる技術者との出会いもフィルム撮影に拍車をかけた。

同時に、海外での初個展や国際展の参加、写真集出版など、外に向かうことや、過去作と向き合う機会が多くなり、「身体あっての制作」という自覚と希望をもちつつ、外に出れば出るほどその「身体」に求められる、眩しい「正しさ」の逆風を強く感じるようになった。

自己を写す鏡としての「あなた」や「社会」に、同じく鏡を内包するカメラを向けることで生まれる「合わせ鏡」。 その合わせ鏡がもつ永遠性に真理が在るような気がする。

世の中は「正しい身体」にフィットするようできている。わたしにとってのオブジェは、そんな「正しい身体」の代用品 だった。オブジェの「作品」という存在価値は「正しい身体」のそれと等しい。だから私はいつまでも写真の中で「作品」ではなく、主体でもなく、マネキンでいられたのだ。『leave-taking #010』において、長時間露光の中ゆっくりと部屋を満たしていくような光は、そんなオブジェに対する飽和した愛と憎しみのようにみえる。

しかしこの 5 年の生活でオブジェはあまり頼りにならなかった。(オブジェは制作してくれないし、光熱費も払ってくれないからね！) 良いことも悪いことも、どんな出来事も、身体あっての遭遇だろう。生きるにも死ぬにも正しさや間違えは関係なく、この身一つが全てだったのだ。

光と光のぶつかり合いで、その間に立つものが消えてしまうグレア現象(蒸発現象ともいう)というものがあるが、それも合わせ鏡に似ている。
まぶしい「正しい身体」を手放して身軽になれば、光も真っ直ぐ届くだろうか。

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