Image of the Day : Kanako Sasaki
title, ©Kanako SasakiFriday, June 12, 2009
Tomorrow: En Foco's "New Works #12" Artists Talk
© Morgan M. Ford, Be Delicious, 2009The [un]Nature of Cosmetics series
Gelatin silver print with beeswax, 15"x15"
New Works #12
En Foco's New Works Photography Awards Fellowship and Exhibition (2008-09)
En Foco's New Works Photography Awards is an annual program selecting three to seven U.S. based photographers of African, Asian, Latino, Native American, or Pacific Islander heritage through a free and open call for submissions. Acting as a creative incubator, it enables artists to create or complete an in-depth photographic series exploring themes of their choice, while providing an honorarium and infrastructure for a professional exhibition in New York.
Morgan M. Ford
Karen Garrett de Luna
Isabelle Lutterodt
Wendy Phillips
Cybèle Clark-Mendes
Archy LaSalle
Viviane Moos
Juror:
Deborah Willis, curator, author, photographer and
Chair of the Photo & Imaging Dept at NYU/TISCH
Dates:
June 4 - June 25, 2009
Free and open to the public
Artist Talk:
Saturday, June 13, 3:30-4:30pm
with Karen Garrett de Luna, Isabelle Lutterodt and Morgan M. Ford
Location:
Calumet Photographic
22 West 22nd Street (between 5th & 6th Avenues)
New York, NY 10010
Monday-Friday 8:30am-5:30pm
Saturday 9:00am-5:30pm Read more...
Thursday, June 11, 2009
A Conversation with Kanako Sasaki
Backyard and Morning, from Wanderlust, © Kanako Sasaki
My work explore my own imaginative world that is influenced from various connections such as traditional Japanese novels and Ukiyo-e paintings or my childhood memories, which inspire me to composite my own Ukiyo—the floating world. -Kanako Sasaki, from Wanderlust.
Kanako Sasaki was an artist in residence at Light Work during my sophomore year at Syracuse. The child-like dreamy quality of her images immediately drawn me to her photography. Also, the combination of childlike nostalgia with her intense interest in cultural history create surreal photographs. I'm so happy Kanako agreed to participate in this conversation.
Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself.
Kanako Sasaki: I grew up in Northern Japan. I decided to study journalism in the US, when I was 17. So, I went to undergraduate in US, upstate NY and received BA in Journalism.
I didn't start photography until the year 2000 or so. I realized that the real way to communicate would be in a free form, not through the mass media.
This is why I started to make images.
I have been lucky enough that I managed to visit different cities to do my project such as Bolivia, Eastern Europe, and so on. I like people and want to understand how people are in any condition of their living. This is why I started to do photography, not to forget how I felt and what I saw.
Uniform and Outcast, from Wanderlust, © Kanako Sasaki
NP: How did you discover photography?
KS: I took my first photo class by curiosity. My teacher showed us some slides including Cindy Sherman. I think her work gave me inspiration and opened up my world to photo.
Yellow Leotard, from Wanderlust, © Kanako Sasaki
As a contemporary Japanese, we hardly talk about the past, because of the generation changes and the swell of the consumerism, which have been fulfilled their desires and having the comfortable lives. I feel urgent to access our own true past so that we can prepare for the future. -Kanako Sasaki, from Walking in the Jungle
NP: Where do you find inspiration?
KS: My memories and imagination are influenced from nature, places, and novels that I've read in the past. One of my favorite authors is Soseki Natsume's novels.
Formally, I look a lot of paintings. I do care to see more than just photography.
I love film and many have inspired me. French, Hong Kong, and Japanese films have taught me the importance of small details, story telling, and how to narrate. Some examples are Jean Luc Godard's "Picnic," Wong Kar Wai's "Chungking Express," and films by Kurosawa Akira.
The act of play and humor is very important in order to reach my audience. I guess this is how I see and how I survive. At the same time, I don't want to forget my memories and sensitivities from my childhood in Japan. After traveling around, this is my defense mechanism in a way... perhaps and the way of communicating people.
I believe we are not so different from each other despite our cultures or any beliefs.
Bathing and Swing Club, from Wanderlust, © Kanako Sasaki
NP: How did your project "Wanderlust" come about?
KS: During "Wanderlust", I was seeking for my origin and also facing the question of "what is reality." Reality became imagination and the two merged. Inspired mainly from traditional Japanese novels and love stories, Ukiyo-e paintings, and my own childhood memories. Also, in order to communicate via images, I want to focus on some universal feelings, such as naiveness and innocence.
I have more been interested in creating a surreal and eccentric mood to express a dream like world than showing the womanhoods. Furthermore, I am interested in the idea of bipolar, such as innocence and aggression, loneliness and playfulness to express the extreme stage of emotion that are on the verge of formation or even explosion. Therefore, there are multiple personalities underneath in girls, which push “self” into the images. It is almost not about the issue of being a girl or living in the different culture, but just as human beings to survive in the reality, which contemplate with the idea such as loss, escape, isolation, and self-distraction in the modern life. -Kanako Sasaki, from Wanderlust
Anne Frank's Signal, Departure, and Site of Russian Army's Departure to Attack Japan 103 Years Ago, from Walking in the Jungle, © Kanako Sasaki
NP: What were some of the ideas in "Walking in the Jungle"?
KS: In 2006 I did a residency in Vienna, Austria. That was my first time living in Europe and was my first time facing so much history in the country. When I was living in London last year, I worked on "Walking in the Jungle." It was my reaction to the history in Europe, especially the history shared with Japan in the Japanese-Russian War in 1904.
I tried to understand the history, especially since my generation can't experience living in the past, and is away from the history. I thought it is very important to understand and remember the history.
In Europe, history surrounds people's lives, especially from buildings. Last year, I was mainly interested in war in history. I thought about the people who had to go through it, for example, Anne Frank.
The project was about my naive interpretation and my link of history so that I don't forget.
Termination and Time Escape, from Walking in the Jungle, © Kanako Sasaki
NP: What's next?
KS: I am working on two different projects, "Bolivia/Okinawa" a project about the immigration of Japanese people to Bolivia after World War II.
I have started the project in Okinawa village (Colonial Okinawa) in Bolivia since last year, connecting the link and gap between the people in Okinawa (Japanese Okinawans) and the people who immigrated to Bolivia after the WWII. I use visual pieces such as video, film and photographs to express their stories.
I'm also working on another project about Iceland, titled "Drifted". In both projects, I began utilizing video and photography. I think it's a good beginning.
NP: Thank you very much!
The Depth, from Walking in the Jungle, © Kanako Sasaki
I struggle, struggle not to forget, what I have felt or saw, etc. In order to do so, I make my own work and create fantastic images or space to remind the viewers to evoke the forgotten emotions and memories. -Kanako Sasaki, from Walking in the Jungle
Currently, Kanako is participating in two solo shows in Japan, both featuring brand new work from her current projects.
Shiseido Gallery
"Okinawan Ark"
Now through March 1, 2009
Ginza Shiseido Building, basement floor
Ginza 8-8-3, Chou-ku, Tokyo
MA2 Gallery
"Drifted"
Now through March 14, 2009
3-3-8 Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Also to see more of her work, head to www.kanakosasaki.com. Read more...
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
LaToya Ruby Frazier and Sebrina Fassbender at Higher Pictures
Self Portrait (March 10 am) 2009, © LaToya Ruby Frazier, courtesy of Higher Pictures
From the press release:
Higher Pictures announces a two-person exhibition of Sebrina Fassbender and LaToya Ruby Frazier. Fassbender will exhibit photographs from a five-year exploration of transient women in the 'old' East Village in New York City. Frazier will exhibit a selection of self-portraits, 2005-2009. The exhibition will run from May 14th through June 20th, 2009.
...
Fassbender spent five years seeking out women who existed within a raw, emotionally sexualized and chaotic space. Responding deeply to the fantasy, unbearable pain and sadness of these women, Fassbender creates her portraits by dressig and psing them in order to make the women more real than the reality of the women themselves.
...
Frazier uses her art to explore her relationship with her family, similar to artists Doug Dubois and Leigh Ledare. Her photography is unlike that of Eugene Richards in that she is not an editorial photographer, but rather, Frazier is the content and photographer, allowing her mothing to frame and shoot her as a subject. Her work is autobiographical and blurs the line between self-portraitute and social documentary.
LaToya Ruby Frazier / Sebrina Fassbender
May 14 through June 20, 2009
at Higher Pictures
764 Madison Avenue (between 65th/66th street)
New York, NY 10065
212.249.6100
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Nymphoto Presents @ Sasha Wolf Gallery
The collective is excited to announce
Nymphoto Presents @ Sasha Wolf.
A group show exhibiting a compelling collection of work by contemporary women photographers from across the globe. While diverse in content, these works convey the complexity of the female gaze – the woman behind the camera. The photographs ignite a spirit by addressing a diversity of issues, which inevitably calls into question: what is feminine.
The exhibit features work by:
Exhibition opens May 23rd through June 6, 2009.
Please join us for the artist reception May 28, 2009 6-8 p.m. at
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A Conversation with Jane Tam
blah blah blah
Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself.
Jane Tam: I’m Chinese American, but never paid attention in Chinese school when I was a kid, so I can’t really read or write the language. I like to take the train when there are only a handful of riders and when the sun beams through the windows onto the seats so that riders squint. I look forward to dark summer nights with fireflies swarming my backyard in Brooklyn. It brings me back to my childhood when my grandparents used to enjoy the summer breeze in the darkness of our yard.
NP: How did you discover photography?
JT: My mother yelled at me when I went through old family photographs, cut them up, created collages, and hid them from her during my elementary school days. I was always the hands-on type and started doodling from watching my older brother and sister do the same. Since then, I have focused in art. Graphic design was in my blood during the early years of high school until I chose a photography class as an elective. I fell in love with being an observer and realized I had neglected the details of the world around me before then. It takes me a while to warm up to people, so I find photography as a way to break the barrier and often help me loosen up.
NP: Where do you find inspiration?
JT: I try to surround myself with art, whether it is from books, music, or visual art. One of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami and I absolutely dreamed my way through “Kafka on the Shore.” His relationships between characters are intricate, philosophical, and reflects a lot of the characters I associate myself with on a daily basis.
My family is the source of most of my projects. The relationships in my family are formed from opposites so there were always eccentric people around me. I spent a lot of time looking through old family albums and always asked my mother about the relationships of relatives I never came to know. It was the stories told that transcribed most of my work.
NP: How do your projects come about?
JT: My childhood memories have a profound influence over the way projects come about. I am the youngest of three in the family and both siblings are significantly older in age. My parents were always working so my grandparents helped raise me. I guess from all that I became an observer.
“Foreigners in Paradise” began with a feeling of homesickness when I moved from Brooklyn to Syracuse for college. The culture shock overwhelmed me, as I felt more Chinese than ever coming from a big city to a more typical American suburban culture. It was an identity that stood out for once and I was sort of uncomfortable with it. I ventured home many weekends to get some comfort from familiar surroundings but I somehow grew apart from the physical home and started to notice the relationships my family and I had with living in Brooklyn. One of the first photographs I took were interior shots of the house; the organized clutter, the tin-foiled stovetop, the multiple calendars in one room, etc. From there, the investigation for the Chinese American in the backdrop of America began as I narrowed in on the members of the family.
Hong Kong is my mother's hometown. She always spoke of the city whenever she reminisced about the past or when we’re watching Chinese-language television. She spent about two decades in that city before moving to America with my father. That city was always a mystery to me since I grew up seeing it on screen, from rental VHS tapes of Hong Kong television series. I would only hear stories about the street food, the markets, the islands, my relatives, and what the city meant to my parents through their eyes. I had a chance to visit Hong Kong for a few times in the past three years and always felt like an outsider in an insider culture there. From that feeling, I started to shoot “Asleep at Sea.” I chose to photograph in more rural parts of the big city, focusing on the outlying islands, because the slower pace atmosphere reflected the Hong Kong my mother grew up in the late 50s and 60s.
NP: What's next?
JT: Since graduating from Syracuse University, I moved back home to Brooklyn and quickly found a full-time job in the photography industry. Balancing a job and my art making has been a tough challenge because there never is enough hours in the day. I hope to continue photographing for “Foreigners in Paradise,” working toward capturing more portraits of more distant family members in the landscape of Brooklyn. Traveling is also in my blood so I hope to go back to Hong Kong in the next two years and work toward a fuller body of work. I am also dabbling in the beginning of a new project that consists of drawings and photographs of my family. It brings me back to my childhood obsession of collage and I hope this new body of work can come organically to me as I experiment.
To view more of Jane Tam's work, visit www.janetam.com.
Read more...
Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself.
Jane Tam: I’m Chinese American, but never paid attention in Chinese school when I was a kid, so I can’t really read or write the language. I like to take the train when there are only a handful of riders and when the sun beams through the windows onto the seats so that riders squint. I look forward to dark summer nights with fireflies swarming my backyard in Brooklyn. It brings me back to my childhood when my grandparents used to enjoy the summer breeze in the darkness of our yard.
NP: How did you discover photography?
JT: My mother yelled at me when I went through old family photographs, cut them up, created collages, and hid them from her during my elementary school days. I was always the hands-on type and started doodling from watching my older brother and sister do the same. Since then, I have focused in art. Graphic design was in my blood during the early years of high school until I chose a photography class as an elective. I fell in love with being an observer and realized I had neglected the details of the world around me before then. It takes me a while to warm up to people, so I find photography as a way to break the barrier and often help me loosen up.
NP: Where do you find inspiration?
JT: I try to surround myself with art, whether it is from books, music, or visual art. One of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami and I absolutely dreamed my way through “Kafka on the Shore.” His relationships between characters are intricate, philosophical, and reflects a lot of the characters I associate myself with on a daily basis.
My family is the source of most of my projects. The relationships in my family are formed from opposites so there were always eccentric people around me. I spent a lot of time looking through old family albums and always asked my mother about the relationships of relatives I never came to know. It was the stories told that transcribed most of my work.
NP: How do your projects come about?
JT: My childhood memories have a profound influence over the way projects come about. I am the youngest of three in the family and both siblings are significantly older in age. My parents were always working so my grandparents helped raise me. I guess from all that I became an observer.
“Foreigners in Paradise” began with a feeling of homesickness when I moved from Brooklyn to Syracuse for college. The culture shock overwhelmed me, as I felt more Chinese than ever coming from a big city to a more typical American suburban culture. It was an identity that stood out for once and I was sort of uncomfortable with it. I ventured home many weekends to get some comfort from familiar surroundings but I somehow grew apart from the physical home and started to notice the relationships my family and I had with living in Brooklyn. One of the first photographs I took were interior shots of the house; the organized clutter, the tin-foiled stovetop, the multiple calendars in one room, etc. From there, the investigation for the Chinese American in the backdrop of America began as I narrowed in on the members of the family.
Hong Kong is my mother's hometown. She always spoke of the city whenever she reminisced about the past or when we’re watching Chinese-language television. She spent about two decades in that city before moving to America with my father. That city was always a mystery to me since I grew up seeing it on screen, from rental VHS tapes of Hong Kong television series. I would only hear stories about the street food, the markets, the islands, my relatives, and what the city meant to my parents through their eyes. I had a chance to visit Hong Kong for a few times in the past three years and always felt like an outsider in an insider culture there. From that feeling, I started to shoot “Asleep at Sea.” I chose to photograph in more rural parts of the big city, focusing on the outlying islands, because the slower pace atmosphere reflected the Hong Kong my mother grew up in the late 50s and 60s.
NP: What's next?
JT: Since graduating from Syracuse University, I moved back home to Brooklyn and quickly found a full-time job in the photography industry. Balancing a job and my art making has been a tough challenge because there never is enough hours in the day. I hope to continue photographing for “Foreigners in Paradise,” working toward capturing more portraits of more distant family members in the landscape of Brooklyn. Traveling is also in my blood so I hope to go back to Hong Kong in the next two years and work toward a fuller body of work. I am also dabbling in the beginning of a new project that consists of drawings and photographs of my family. It brings me back to my childhood obsession of collage and I hope this new body of work can come organically to me as I experiment.
To view more of Jane Tam's work, visit www.janetam.com.
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