It took me some time to discover that Hanayo was taking pictures, and I was honestly
surprised. She was a model, a singer and a noise system musician, while at thesame time working hard to finish her studies and become a geisha. Being engaged inso many things, I confess I did not have very high expectations of the snaps she wastaking here and there. But now that I have seen her photographs, I am taken abackby her fine images, published as Hanayo Photograph Collection: Hanayome"(February 1996, Shinchosha). What surprised me most about her work was her
distinct style which can only been as a result of her individuality and pleasant charm.
When she was a geisha apprentice, Hanayo had her tongue pierced and a Iady bug I
tattooed on her skin. During that time, it was difficult to draw a line between herself
as an artist and her own artistic work and expression. To accomplish the same stylein her photography, she had to find a way of creating herself through the pictures.
She had to pay equal attention to the images of herself and to the images inher photography, which would finally lead to the creation of one single piece of art:
"She and the Photographs". Although Hanayo's photography might be considered theoutcome of the latest trends in fashion and art (though I have refused to judge her
work as such from the very beginning), she goes further and succeeds in creatingnovelty - though the funny and most fascinating thing about her photography is thatshe does indeed seems to be totally immersed in these things. I do not want to imply
that her photographs are the visible outcome of a trendy personality, but that she as
an artist enters into an ambiguous relationship with her own art works. What are thecharacteristic features of the relationship between a photographer and her/hispictures? If the relationship is about self-expression, then there will be no gap
between the person and the photographs. The photographer projects her/his innerworld onto the outside, and through this creative process tries to differentiate or evento beautify reality (or the real self). Considering her gentle personality, the profoundcharacteristic if Hanayo’s work is that it cannot simply be described as "HerPhotography". None of the photographs has a clear expressive meaning in itself, butthey all give rise to the idea of how she understands her own existence, and are thus
her ‚other self’, the other side of her existence. Two of her closest friends, Gabin Itohand Shinichi Nakazawa, would call this the "Baroque of the Forest" principle.
Obviously her photographs are not about documenting woodland ecology. Onthe contrary, her work is full of plastic and artificial things. It is irrelevant whether theeffect is created by using organic or inorganic material, because it emerges from theBaroque logic of overloading images with subtle, built-in information. If we consider
the amount of information in Hanayo's photographs and call the excess ofinformation "the forest", then the common element with baroque techniques areclearer. Before modern forestry criminally reduced biodiversity, virgin forest wascomposed of innumerable species of tree, moss, ferns, fungi - everything frommicrobes to small animals, living in various complex symbioses. In her photography,
Hanayo picks up this idea and shows that it would be enriching and positive if Westand East, children and adults, tattoos, piercing and the traditional Japanese arts, thescientific principle of rationality and various elements of superstition, would mingle
and co-exist. This is what is shown through her photographic work. I trust people will
not judge her photographs by their first rather artificial appearance, but willappreciate that "She and Her Photographs" is about the recuperation and theprotection of the last resorts of nature.
From "Photography as the Other Side of Existence" by Noi Sawaragi,,shinchou, translated by
Barbara Fuchs and Jules Marshall.
Cities on the Move