Seen: Resonating Womb 共鳴する子宮
Who: Asami Choshi / instagram
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: January 12 - 24, 2015 / Open 12:00-19:00 / (Closed Mondays)
The photos with the most immediate impact in Ms. Choshi’s photographs that comprise Resonating Womb show women often in (or mostly out of) kimono, baths, soap, and rope. What’s different than the uncountable numbers of similarly-themed pictures in the world is that rather than being the result of lighting and emails and ideas and model-mayhem nonsense, these women are close friends and companions Choshi. There’s proof of access and trust between all involved in the photos that a male photographer most likely couldn’t facilitate.
Everything lifted from life by Choshi’s lens becomes a highly eroticised, whether it is a bound nude woman on the floor, or as in the third image above, a hand interacting with squid from the supermarket before dinner with friends. The images certainly sexy but this has less to do with monochromatic rope-bound breasts and more a feeling that the pictures express when put together in a row along the wall. The surfaces seen in these photos are sticky, glistening, and wet. Wetness is the key ingredient in Japanese photography.
Speaking with the photographer in the gallery this evening I was struck by her geniality and purity- she had none of that annoyingly self-important arty-porny machisimo that so many male photographers who photograph naked women tend to have. I couldn’t quite figure out her reasoning for taking these pictures- but that’s not a problem. She doesn’t stand to gain anything with them- on the contrary she seemed surprised at my encouragement that she submit this series for the Canon Shin-seiki contest. Whatever her reasons- even if it’s a purely personal yet not-fully-understood interest, she obviously felt a need to take them. That’s a good enough answer.