“Sekilala”

For the approach which alters reality for the better, I couldn't help creating a new work. If there is a title and content, photography should also resonate as music.

"Photography = Music"

Because I was into hip-hop before I started photography, I took photos as if I put the rap to the beat. Unifying the background with "night" became the beat, and "flowers" and "women" as motifs turned into the lyrics.

It is said that the origin of hip-hop is that black people oppressed by racism have created something more rapid than their gushing negative emotions. When applying it to me, if I have negative emotions, I try to look at other things. I want this work not to deny the pain and darkness, but to depict a perspective that is not bound by them. So the concept of the work has become "See the Light".

The phrase, "You should choose photography over me", made me decide to marry her. Labor in day and photograph at night. While performing a normal daily life, I tried to put things that are difficult to say into photographs.

Even though I couldn't see much in the dark, my positive feelings lit up a little like a strobe. The light of the strobe illuminated flowers and women like a torch.

I photographed subjects I found to be sincerely beautiful with a physiological sense. Photos with such an urge sounded like a scream. The light that deviated from the subject disappeared in the dark, and it overlapped with the days when I was seeking for hope. While in the progress of this work, we couple were on the infertility treatment. From that experience, life seemed truly precious, and I was attracted to the stance of flowers showing off all their lives.

The women who became the subjects of my work were all struggling to connect with society. I talked over with each one of them. The more I knew their fragility, the deeper I was able to see them.

The life that exists now is the life that has continued. So I made this work in the shape of a scroll book, to express the continuous connection. I edited them in freestyle with reference to Japanese old picture scroll "Hyakki Yagyo Emaki" which uses a wide variety and diversity of colors. I found it interesting to see the commonalities of scrolling both now and in the past, and I decided to present this work on the web so that anyone can easily browse.

It's great if you can feel uplifted by seeing this work, without knowing Japanese words written here, just like listening to foreign music that you don't understand the meaning of the lyrics.

55 photographs spread out fully in a six-tatami room of my apartment. I will dedicate this work to anyone who is trying to accomplish something.

Spring, 2021
Chinatsu Goda