Hideaki Kawashima - Anxiety, 2008
Hideaki Kawashima
Hideaki Kawashima - Nirvana, 2008
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Scarred lives
Kosuke Okahara spends time with young people in Japan who resort to self-mutilation as a means to cope with lives shadowed by anxiety, mental illness, and sexual abuse.
Kosuke Okahara - Sayuri, 22 years old, smokes a cigarette in her room. She smokes 2 - 3 packets of cigarettes in a day
(from the Ibasyo, self-mutilation in Japan series).
Kosuke Okahara - Sayuri, 22 years old, driving a car at night. She just quit her job since her condition became really bad and she could not continue to work normally. Sayuri had experiences of sexual abuse in her childhood and that triggered self-injury
(from the Ibasyo, self-mutilation in Japan series).
Kosuke Okahara - Mariko takes medicine before she sleeps. She always takes sleeping pills because she can not fall sleep as usual since she became mentally ill (from the Ibasyo, self-mutilation in Japan series).
Kosuke Okahara - Kaori. Plagued by depression and what she describes as panic attack disorder, the 23-year-old from Fukuoka cycles through jobs. In order to deal with her anxiety, she sometimes resorts to injuring herself. In this photo, she makes a bandage to stop the bleeding (from the Ibasyo, self-mutilation in Japan series).
Kosuke Okahara - Sayuri, 22 years old, smokes a cigarette in her room. She smokes 2 - 3 packets of cigarettes in a day
(from the Ibasyo, self-mutilation in Japan series).
Kosuke Okahara - Sayuri, 22 years old, driving a car at night. She just quit her job since her condition became really bad and she could not continue to work normally. Sayuri had experiences of sexual abuse in her childhood and that triggered self-injury
(from the Ibasyo, self-mutilation in Japan series).
Kosuke Okahara - Mariko takes medicine before she sleeps. She always takes sleeping pills because she can not fall sleep as usual since she became mentally ill (from the Ibasyo, self-mutilation in Japan series).
Kosuke Okahara - Kaori. Plagued by depression and what she describes as panic attack disorder, the 23-year-old from Fukuoka cycles through jobs. In order to deal with her anxiety, she sometimes resorts to injuring herself. In this photo, she makes a bandage to stop the bleeding (from the Ibasyo, self-mutilation in Japan series).
Friday, August 14, 2009
Elisa Sassi's moods
Elisa Sassi - Rain obsession
Elisa Sassi - Heavy thoughts
Elisa Sassi - V. ITAMIN
Elisa Sassi - Tiny
Elisa Sassi - Restart
Friday, August 7, 2009
Tales from Odessa
Joseph Sywenkyj's intimate portraits of Ira and Sasha, both HIV-positive, and their children.
Joseph Sywenkyj - Tanya cartwheels through the kitchen. Ira, her mother, is HIV-positive.
Odessa, Ukraine, 2004 (from the Verses series).
Joseph Sywenkyj - Ira and Rita walk with Masha to the Out Patient AIDS Center.
Odessa, Ukraine, 2002 (from the Verses series).
Joseph Sywenkyj - Sasha, who is HIV-positive, holds his daughter Masha.
Odessa, Ukraine, 2002 (from the Verses series).
Joseph Sywenkyj - Tanya and Masha. Masha is HIV-positive.
Odessa, Ukraine, 2005 (from the Verses series).
(via rachelhulin)
Joseph Sywenkyj - Tanya cartwheels through the kitchen. Ira, her mother, is HIV-positive.
Odessa, Ukraine, 2004 (from the Verses series).
Joseph Sywenkyj - Ira and Rita walk with Masha to the Out Patient AIDS Center.
Odessa, Ukraine, 2002 (from the Verses series).
Joseph Sywenkyj - Sasha, who is HIV-positive, holds his daughter Masha.
Odessa, Ukraine, 2002 (from the Verses series).
Joseph Sywenkyj - Tanya and Masha. Masha is HIV-positive.
Odessa, Ukraine, 2005 (from the Verses series).
(via rachelhulin)
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Gender flavor
Rachel Papo captures the life of women serving in the Israeli army. Elzbieta Jablonska tells us about Polish super-mothers. JeongMee Yoon explores the wardrobes of young girls and boys. Cass Bird and Molly Landreth take us on a trip across queer America. Julia Fullerton-Batten has visited a most scary school.
Rachel Papo (from the Serial No. 3817131 series)
Rachel Papo (from the Serial No. 3817131 series)
Elzbieta Jablonska (from the Supermother series)
JeongMee Yoon (from The Pink & Blue Project series)
Cass Bird (from the Portraits series)
Molly Landreth (from the Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America series)
Julia Fullerton-Batten (from the School Play series)
Rachel Papo (from the Serial No. 3817131 series)
Rachel Papo (from the Serial No. 3817131 series)
Elzbieta Jablonska (from the Supermother series)
JeongMee Yoon (from The Pink & Blue Project series)
Cass Bird (from the Portraits series)
Molly Landreth (from the Embodiment: A Portrait of Queer Life in America series)
Julia Fullerton-Batten (from the School Play series)
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Super Rich • Ultra Gorgeous • Extra Skinny • Forever Young
Tania Fernandez, Lauren Greenfield, Zbigniew Libera, and Barbara Kruger have their say on our image-obsessed society.
Tania Fernandez (from the Academia de Refinamiento series)
Tania Fernandez (from the Academia de Refinamiento series)
Lauren Greenfield (from the Thin series)
Lauren Greenfield (from the Thin series)
Zbigniew Libera (Ken's Aunt)
Barbara Kruger (from the Face It series)
Barbara Kruger (Super Rich • Ultra Gorgeous • Extra Skinny • Forever Young)
Tania Fernandez (from the Academia de Refinamiento series)
Tania Fernandez (from the Academia de Refinamiento series)
Lauren Greenfield (from the Thin series)
Lauren Greenfield (from the Thin series)
Zbigniew Libera (Ken's Aunt)
Barbara Kruger (from the Face It series)
Barbara Kruger (Super Rich • Ultra Gorgeous • Extra Skinny • Forever Young)
Monday, November 24, 2008
Four Nights Too Many
Four Nights with Anna (2008), the first movie directed by Jerzy Skolimowski in 17 years, tells the story of Leon, a lonely man who is increasingly attracted towards Anna, a neighbor and co-worker. Unable or unwilling to speak his love, he follows her, spies on her, and devises a way to break into her house in the deep of the night, hovering around Anna's bed while she sleeps.
Anyone who has have the misfortune of being the target of obsessive unrequited love will recognize the movie as an accurate portrait of the grim plight of stalking. Leon perceives reality through the lens of his need for intimacy and proximity. His actions are justified by a deep belief that he is the only person who really cares for Anna. Along the way, he shows total disregard for Anna's privacy, intimacy, feelings, will, and ultimately even for her life.
Significantly, Four Nights with Anna is seldom presented as a movie about stalking. In fact, it has been varied described as "an intimate love story", "an eccentric romance-comedy", or an example of the "cinema of moral concern". Reviewers invariably express their sympathy for Leon, and Kinga Preis, the actress playing Anna, candidly confessed during an interview that she was sorry Leon and Anna didn't stay together at the end.
It is a compliment to Skolimowski's filming skills that the movie manages to remain in the borderline between these two worlds, showing in a masterful way how they can co-exist, and how the stalker's emotional blindness prevents him from detecting the presence of this other reality, one where he does not belong, one whose premises he does not have the right to violate.
Because we, the audience, understand Leon and naturally feel sorry for him, we too become blind to what is going on. In fact, we might be led to even admire Leon for his suffering, his dedication, his self-restrain(!). The movie's greatest achievement is thus to show how we, as a society, confuse stalking for affection, and accept extreme forms of emotional and psychological violence (often degenerating into physical violence and even homicide) as long as they are covered by the gloss of romantic love.
Skolimowski, however, stops short of a full-fledged endorsement of this view. He is thus in a world quite distinct from that inhabited by other film directors who have shown quite lenient views on this same subject, often siding unabashedly with the stalker. Movies such as Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue 6: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, or one of Kieslowski's subsequent film The Double Life of Veronique, are a case at point. Another example would be Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express. Unlike Four Nights with Anna, these movies either portrait the stalker as victim (Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery), welcomed mysterious seducer (The Double Life of Veronique), or raise the possibility of a happy end (Chungking Express). Nothing could be further away from reality.
.
Anyone who has have the misfortune of being the target of obsessive unrequited love will recognize the movie as an accurate portrait of the grim plight of stalking. Leon perceives reality through the lens of his need for intimacy and proximity. His actions are justified by a deep belief that he is the only person who really cares for Anna. Along the way, he shows total disregard for Anna's privacy, intimacy, feelings, will, and ultimately even for her life.
Significantly, Four Nights with Anna is seldom presented as a movie about stalking. In fact, it has been varied described as "an intimate love story", "an eccentric romance-comedy", or an example of the "cinema of moral concern". Reviewers invariably express their sympathy for Leon, and Kinga Preis, the actress playing Anna, candidly confessed during an interview that she was sorry Leon and Anna didn't stay together at the end.
It is a compliment to Skolimowski's filming skills that the movie manages to remain in the borderline between these two worlds, showing in a masterful way how they can co-exist, and how the stalker's emotional blindness prevents him from detecting the presence of this other reality, one where he does not belong, one whose premises he does not have the right to violate.
Because we, the audience, understand Leon and naturally feel sorry for him, we too become blind to what is going on. In fact, we might be led to even admire Leon for his suffering, his dedication, his self-restrain(!). The movie's greatest achievement is thus to show how we, as a society, confuse stalking for affection, and accept extreme forms of emotional and psychological violence (often degenerating into physical violence and even homicide) as long as they are covered by the gloss of romantic love.
Skolimowski, however, stops short of a full-fledged endorsement of this view. He is thus in a world quite distinct from that inhabited by other film directors who have shown quite lenient views on this same subject, often siding unabashedly with the stalker. Movies such as Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue 6: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery, or one of Kieslowski's subsequent film The Double Life of Veronique, are a case at point. Another example would be Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express. Unlike Four Nights with Anna, these movies either portrait the stalker as victim (Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery), welcomed mysterious seducer (The Double Life of Veronique), or raise the possibility of a happy end (Chungking Express). Nothing could be further away from reality.
.
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