This summer, Les Rencontres d’Arles, the bushy-tailed photography festival in southern France, is championing the visionary women photographers of Japan. At the opening ceremony in the ancient Roman theatre, Ishiuchi Miyako was honoured with the Women in Motion award. She is a fitting recipient of this edition, which is the most female-focused in recent years. With her emphasis on women’s agency, autonomy and consciousness, Ishiuchi has inspired a generation of younger women photographers in Japan, a handful of whom feature in Transcendence, an exhibition by Kyotographie that spotlights this bright new wave of talent.
Meanwhile, at the Archbishop’s Palace, the festival’s show-stopping, canon-revising I’m So Happy You Are Here takes place, exhibiting photographs, videos and books by 25 Japanese women photographers from the 1950s to now. With discourses around the history of Japanese photography so often revolving around the famous boys’ club – Daido Moriyama, Nobuyoshi Araki and co – the contributions of women have been underrepresented and neglected, particularly outside Japan. While the exhibition is therefore timely, perhaps its real value is for posterity, to ensure that Japanese women photographers get their rightful place in the history books. A significant contribution towards the project’s reach and longevity is the accompanying publication by Aperture. Through magnificently illustrated portfolios, illuminating insights and essays, it makes the emphatic case: let us now praise the not-so-famous women photographers of Japan.
Below, we talk with co-curator, Pauline Vermare, about the work, lives and legacies of underrepresented Japanese women photographers celebrated in I’m Happy You Are Here.
This project feels like a long time coming. How did it come about?
Pauline Vermare: It was a convergence of personal and professional factors. I spent the formative years of my childhood in Tokyo, and have been working in photography institutions for over 20 years. In 2019, I was invited by photo historians Luce Lebart and Marie Robert to contribute to A World History of Women Photographers, for which I suggested writing about a few Japanese photographers. When the book came out the following year, I was invited to give an online masterclass on Japanese women photographers for the Maison Européenne de la Photographie. It was during this research that it occurred to me that most of these photographers were not known outside Japan. On a personal level, the work I was looking at brought me back to a Japan I was familiar with. I thought that others might also appreciate work that differed from what we typically expect from and of Japan, which is, for the most part, masculine perspectives in contrasted black-and-white.
How have Japanese women photographers faired in regards to visibility and representation in institutions outside of Japan?
Pauline Vermare: Very few women have been exhibited over the past 50 years in comparison to men. The groundbreaking show on Japanese photography at MoMA in 1974 didn’t include any women, and the one at ICP in 1979 only included one (Ishiuchi Miyako, and only because Cornell Capa insisted there be at least one woman in the show). Since then, things have evolved, but I’d say that generally speaking, outside Japan, amongst the handful of Japanese photographers who are exhibited (and often the same ones), the overwhelming majority are men. To the point that the western audiences almost automatically expect Japanese photographers to be men, with Japanese women as subjects. And so, with this project, it’s exciting to introduce a large number of other voices, historical and contemporary, into the mix.
How did the title, I’m So Happy You Are Here, come about?
Pauline Vermare: It’s inspired by a verse in one of Rinko Kawauchi’s poems. We felt that it did a good job at conveying the spirit of this project. How wonderful it is to be in the company of these photographers and their work! Beyond that, there was a tenderness and a gentleness to this title that we felt would be helpful at a time like this.
What were your key concerns when translating this research into an exhibition versus the book?
Pauline Vermare: With a book, you can take your time, go off to read an article, look at a portfolio and come back to it. With the show, Mariko Takeuchi, Lesley Martin and I wanted to create a similar spirit of dynamism and eclecticism, but with a tighter structure, focusing on three themes: perspectives on society, the everyday and experimentation.
Photo books play an important part in the show, and the survey also includes a bibliography of books. Why did you want to emphasise this medium?
Pauline Vermare: Because for decades, photo books were pretty much the only way these photographers could share their work. And because these books are absolutely beautiful. The illustrated bibliography really is a book within the book. A whole show could, or should, be dedicated to these publications alone.
There’s also an associated show on Ishiuchi in Arles. Why has she been so influential to the next generation of women photographers in Japan?
Pauline Vermare: In terms of influence, first and foremost, she had a major impact in terms of showing the way: that a woman, and a self-taught one, too, can be a photographer in Japan. Many photographers in the show have expressed their deep respect to her. Formally, her oeuvre stands apart, but arguably her work in colour, documenting objects that belonged to her mother or clothing of those killed in Hiroshima, has had just as much of an impact on photographers outside Japan too.
Do you think being a woman has a material impact on photographic practice?
Pauline Vermare: Quite naturally, being a woman means having another perspective than the prevalent male ones, either on similar subjects (Ishiuchi speaks about this quite eloquently when she explains why she, too, decided to photograph Yokosuka, a town that was occupied by a US military base, and that had been photographed by Daido Moriyama and Shomei Tomatsu), or on subjects specifically about their experiences as women (or non-binary photographers, in the case of Momo Okabe). These include themes like the objectification of women by male photographers, daily life or the difficulty of conforming to the role of the “Japanese woman”. Formally, the use of colour by Japanese women photographers is remarkable. But, also, many worked like the men of their generation too, shooting in black-and-white and spending a lot of time in the dark room.
How would you sum up the project in a few words?
Pauline Vermare: Exciting expanded horizons.
I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now runs at Archbishop’s Palace, Les Recontres d’Arles, until 29 September 2024. The accompanying catalogue is published by Aperture.
