“Full bloom”
Photography for me is something that sparks awareness of what I’m thinking and what I’m feeling. Each photo is independent, and as we work together, things inside me transform into something visible. I can’t explain it well, but I also think it’s something that pulls me up. In this work, I cut printing paper and put it together while carefully considering the relationship between each photo, where to place emphasis, and to ensure the pieces fit with each other. For Full Bloom, where I combined a pachinko machine and cherry blossoms, I wanted to bring a retired pachinko machine back to center stage, so I combined it with cherry blossoms.
Selecting judge: Fumio Nanjo
I felt her work was very effective as a commentary of contemporary Japan. I like the title Full Bloom and the cherry blossoms. The pop culture of pachinko represents Japan’s society, culture, bustle, world of rich colors, and is reconstructed within a monochrome, somewhat systematic structure. That irony created a distinctive world. Also, at first glance it looks like a collage, but if you look carefully at the mix of images, it’s actually printed-paper systematically woven, which is astonishing. Complexity and simplicity, heaviness and lightness, solemnity and vulgarity not only come together, but actually create the multi-layered meaning of the work.
