“Room of Love”
This describes a story based on a single act in a liberated but closed room. In this room as a stage, visitors perform a story. A couple start the performance secretly and when it ends, another couple comes in and gives its performance. At the center of the stage is the story, not the performers. There is no audience. I perform the story again. I watch it in the audience seat. The solo performance has neither beginning nor ending. However, as I perform the story, I think I can search for something mysterious called love, and I can face it.
Selecting judge: Kotaro Iizawa
Kaori Yamamoto’s “Room of Love” series is her second entry following one at the previous contest. This time I see her efforts in indicating the passage of time as in a movie, for example, by having the model walk out of the room. It is also interesting that the pictures of the same place are used repeatedly to produce a kind of visual rhythm. However, compared with the last one that extensively dealt with the room interior and costume-play, this work has a lesser degree of overall accomplishment. “Room of Love” series is still in the process of being made, and hopefully she will reconstruct it on a greater scale. Her consistent approach in pursuing the same theme is a valuable asset, and she will make a unique female photographer when the basic elements of life and sex are more powerfully expressed in her pictures.
