Yanagi and My Grandmother

Lately Japan is developing from a conservative country to a more western-orientated country. However the role of the woman is still subordinate to the role of the man. In “the My Grandmothers series” Yanagi expresses how Japanese women think of their career. Pictures of his works can be seen on www.artnews.info/miwayanagi.

I quote a piece of the extraction of an interview with Yanagi which is the most essential part of all:

“Wakasa: What is the process of shifting from restricted women to free women?

Yanagi: I used a lot of models for the elevator girls series. They were like dolls or mannequins because of my control. I switched to photography from performance art because I wanted to control their performance 100 percent. As a result, they became mannequins. In the process of making the series, I had opportunities to talk with models who were in their twenties. It was interesting. They want something for their future. But, they have hard time expressing what they want as if their desires were subdued or locked inside. It's hard to tell when locked. Japanese women today conceive themselves as someone who are lovable. They think they have to be lovable and liked by everyone around them. Especially young women think that they don't deserve to live if they are not like that. As a result, they don't talk openly about their wishes or strange desires even though they had some ideas about who they wanted to be when they were children. In order for them to recall their childhood dreams, they need to be liberated from their youthfulness.”
(Interview can be found at: www.jca-online.com/yanagi.html)


Japan is one of the biggest exporters of art and technology. The Japanese photography differs a lot from the western society photography. This makes the Japanese post-photography an interesting subject.

Jahfed.com