TALKS
Interview
Yoshiyuki MORIOKA（the owner） × NATSOUMI（photographer）
+ Junko SUZUKI（curator)
◾️History: Paths connected by a series of small coincidences
Mr Morioka (hereafter referred to as Morioka):
My name is Morioka, and I run the Morioka Bookshop. Today, I have invited the photographer Natsoumi and the curator Junko Suzuki to talk about the world of Natsoumi's photographs.
Natsoumi:
I am the photographer Natsoumi. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with us today. We had been discussing putting on a photo exhibition at Morioka Shoten (Morioka Bookstore) since the shop used to be in Kayabacho, but it was postponed several times, so I am thrilled to be here today.
Junko Suzuki(referred to from now on as Suzuki):
My name is Junko Suzuki, I’m a freelance curator and was in charge of curating the ATELIER MUJI gallery space in the Yurakucho branch for many years. I met Morioka-san when he was in charge of selecting books for the opening of the MUJI Ginza shop. I met Natsoumi when I was a curator at ATELIER MUJI and held an exhibition inspired by an article she wrote. First of all, can you tell us how you became a photographer?
Natsoumi:
My encounters with people and sheer coincidence led me to become a photographer. When I was in my first year of university, I worked part-time in the editorial department of a fashion magazine called GINZA, published by a company called Magazine House. Digital cameras were not that popular at the time and photographers were still using film. I would approach the photographers and ask to borrow their analogue films, make up articles and then return them, which gave me an insight into editorial work.
Suzuki:
At first,you were interested in fashion, weren't you?
Natsoumi:
Yes, that's right. At the time, GINZA had a famous editor-in-chief called Miyoko Yodogawa and I wanted to become a fashion editor and follow in her fabulous footsteps. After that, I worked part-time in the editorial department of a magazine called ‘Composite’, where I was involved in location scouting and organising fashion shoots. I also had the experience of choosing the locations for Kishin Shinoyama's shoots. Although not directly related to photography, I gradually became more and more involved with photography through this work.
Suzuki:
So, at that time, you still didn’t want to become a photographer? You hadn’t even thought of going to Paris, had you?
Natsoumi:
I didn't aspire to be a photographer, nor did I think about going to Paris (laughs). By the time I graduated from university, I had considered staying in the editorial department, but one day, I met a fashion editor from Germany, Katja Rahlwes, who contributed to Composite. I wanted to work with her, so I emailed her and told her that I wanted to become a fashion editor. She replied offering me a styling job for the Viennese brand Wendy&Jim during the Paris Collection,“so come over”. Then I summoned up all my courage and went to Paris.
Suzuki:
Were you employed as an in-house employee then? Or were you just called in as a freelancer?
Natsoumi:
I was offered the opportunity to go and just got carried away and went (laughs). They weren't looking for staff, but I forced my way in and was paid very little. It was like an apprenticeship, but I learned how to work in that environment. After I got there, Katja Rahlwes started saying that she was going to be a photographer. She said, ‘I will only take photos from now on and I want to leave the choosing of clothes to my assistant, so the first assistant and I had to do the styling together. That's when I had a moment where I thought,‘Is taking photos that much fun?’
Suzuki:
From that point, how did you find your way to becoming a photographer?
Natsoumi:
No, not yet (laughs). I wanted to be a fashion editor back then, so I visited different maisons, but I was discriminated against because I was a coloured woman and treated as if I were invisible. These problems were compounded by my poor language skills, so I started studying French all over again and went to university with the intention of studying French rigourously. I started a course in linguistics,as I thought it would be useful when I returned to Japan. Only then did I realise the depth and breadth of the relationship between semiotics,linguistics and photography.
Suzuki:
So that's how you learned to speak French.
Natsoumi:
Yes, I also improved my French at a Japanese restaurant in Paris, where I had a part-time job. In the area where that restaurant waslocated, there was an apartment block where low-income people live where immigrants from several countries lived, such as the Middle East, North Africa and China some of whom used to come to the restaurant as customers and colleagues. It was also near a Jewish school. Many artists lived in the area, because it’s out of the centre so it’s easier to find larger studio spaces and rent is cheaper. Some of the artists would show me their artwork when they came to the restaurant. There was a colour proof of a photogrpahy book on the wallopposite the toilets in the restaurant and the photos were so great that I asked the manager about them and was surprised when he told me that they were by a Magnum Photographer who ate at the restaurant. I learnt that the regular customer was noneother than Gueorgui Pinkhassov, a member of the world famous Magnum photographers’cooperative. The next time Pinkhassov came to see me, he showed me his contact sheets, colour proofs and prints, and I was fascinated by his extraordinary view of the world. That made me feel that photography was exciting and that I wanted to try it myself.
Suzuki:
Did you start taking pictures yourself from then on?
Natsoumi:
Yes, I did. When I was working part-time at the Japanese restaurant, during my lunch break, I used to go to a big park nearby and I started taking photos of all sorts of people, from all kinds of backgrounds. Mr Pinkhassov always wore a simple nylon jacket and never attempted to make himself look cool. He was like ai – free as a bird He didn't say anything in words, but learnt that photography is about being like the wind blowing wherever you are.
Suzuki:
How did Mr Morioka and Natsoumi meet?
Morioka:
About 15 or 16 years ago, when Natsoumi was in Paris, I received an email from her. It was about a picture book that Natsoumi was very moved by in France and she wanted me to share it with people in Japan. Not long afterwards, I had a chance to pick up a copy of the book and have a good look at it. I thought it was indeed a good book, but I did nothing about it at the time. One day, a certain Tamura-san from the editorial department of ‘Natural Life（天然生活）’visited the shop and I showed her the picture book. She was also very moved by the imageswrite an article aobu it for the magazine ‘Natural Life（天然生活）’.
Juliette photo: NATSOUMI
Suzuki:
That is a coffee table book called ‘Les Doigts Qui Rêvent’ [Dreaming Fingers] - published by a French photography publisher which sends out their handmade picture books all over the world. Children with poor vision or blindness can read it. I read an article about the book in ‘Natural Life（天然生活）’and thought,‘One day, I want to make an exhibition about this picture book. I've been playing with the idea for about eight years ever since then and I've been exploring different opportunities to do so. Then, I decided to organise an exhibition at ‘ATELIER MUJI’ and called the editorial department of Natural Life（天然生活), who granted me approval, but one of the editors told me, "Actually, this article wasn’t written by somone on our team, but a photojournalist in Paris who covered the story." So I asked for their contact details and was introduced to Natsoumi, who had already returned to Japan.
Morioka:
It’s thanks to Natsoumi’s energy that all this happened. Listening to her today, I genuinely feel that if you keep challenging yourself, no matter how small the goal, you can make your life so much brighter.
◾️ A Sense of Colour & Humour through the eyes of Jewish authors.
Suzuki:
I would like to ask Mr Morioka to talk a little about photography.
Morioka:
Yes, sure. Today, I’ve brought a French edition of Saul Leiter's photography book ‘Early Colour’. In 2023, I curated the Saul Leiter Japan-related book collection exhibition at Morioka Shoten's Shibuya Hikarie branch. If I had to list three characteristics of Saul Leiter, the first would be his technique of taking photographs with mirrors from different angles and perspectives. The second would be the images of snow, which were inspired by the prints by Japanese Ukiyo-e prints. The third would be his use of colour, especially red and yellow. I have heard that he used to make adjustments to the Kodak colour film he was using at the time to make Caucasians' skin tones more yellowish so that they did’nt look so pale and morbidly blueIt is thought that Saul Leiter, who continued to use this film, must have had very strong feelings about the colour yellow. I have been told that yellow is an abhorrent colour in Judaism. I was told that yellow is a colour that should be kept away from the 13th person at the Last Supper because the clothes he was wearing were yellow. So, on that theory, Saul Leiter's heavy use of yellow conveys that he is drawing a line in the sand with the Jewish culture.
Natsoumi:
Yellow is the colour is associated with the Jews. I read some Jewish literature when I was writing my graduate thesis, including a short story called ‘The Magic Barrel’by the Jewish writer Bernard Malamud. I also discussed one of Woody Allen’s films. With regard to the original edition of ‘The Magic Barrel’ it is no coincidence that the yellow on the cover symbolises the Jewish people. If I hadn't researched Malamud for my thesis, I would never have considered photographing the world around me. Saul Leiter's way of life is very similar to Malamud's world view. There is a word ‘Schlemiel’ in Yiddish (a language spoken by Ashkenaze Jews in Central and Eastern Europe), which signifies humour unique to Jewish culture that is an amusing mockery of boorish charaters who inevitably end up in unfortunate circumstanes. In my opinion, Saul Leiter eventually left the fashion job he was doing for financial reasons.
Morioka:
There are various theories about Natsoumi’s story now, and depending on which theory you adopt, thefact is that Leiter moved from Pittsburgh to New York in 1946, and started taking fashion photos for Vogue and Harper's BAZAAR. He was very successful in the 1970s, but at some point, he quit his job. One of the reasons was Soames Bantry, a model , beloved muse and partner. They shared a modest life together until the early 2000s, when ‘Early Colour’ was published, and he had another international breakthrough. Throughout thistime, Saul Leiter loved Ms Soames and painted and took photographs for her. I think this kind of energy and love-inspired activity directed at a particular individual is very powerful. The same applies to the picture book exhibition that Natsoumi was moved to put on and Mr Suzuki to curate, which was inspired by her passion for writing.
Suzuki:
Yes, that's right.‘Les Doigts Qui Rêvent' is carefully made, pageg by page, by volunteers in a workshop in rural Burgundy, France. In 2016, it won the Ragazzi Disability Book Award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair, the world's largest trade fair for children's books. When Natsoumi said she would be a fashion editor, she went to Paris, picked up a camera, and chanced upon this wonderful picture book. Her extraordinary energy and courage and confidence in her ideas is what started the ball rolling. That is reflected in the photographs on display here. In their production there is also a combination of intellectual and emotional sensitivity.
Natsoumi:
I once visited the Saul Leiter exhibition at the Koriyama Museum of Art in Fukushima Prefecture, where there were small works in the form of paper strips on display. These works, which were presented as snippets, were probably cut and pasted from solid prints. This process of overlaying photographic paper and film and then exposing them to create a contact sheet is a way for the photographer to keep a record of what he has photographed. When I find a shot I like, I pin a portion of the contact sheet to the wall of my room or studio. I was surprised to discover that this approach is similar to Saul Leiter's. Sometimes, the photos on the wall speak to me discreetly, asking me to enlarge them or print them. So I decide which ones to print and in which order to print the photos, spending time with them as my feelings take shape.
For this exhibition, I printed photographs that did not speak to me when I had previously put together photo collections, i.e. photographs that I had left in my room as solid prints and which spoke to me about ten years after taking them. I have experienced two miscarriages and the photographs of the children in this exhibition were taken by overlaying the significance and feelings of the miscarried children on the children I met by chance and who became the subjects of my photographs as if my first child had grown up to be about this age.
At Natsoumi's studio
Suzuki:
Were you filming with that theme in mind? Or did it happen when you were filming?
Natsoumi:
It happened by chance when I was taking pictures. My daughter was born in October, so when she was six months old, she could hold her head up; spring came, and we went to a nearby river to see cherry blossoms together. When I saw the cherry trees in full bloom there, I felt as if I were in the womb of Mother Earth. The branches of the cherry trees looked like the veins of the womb. I felt like I was being kept alive in this world. The photo of the cherry blossoms here was taken at that moment.
Suzuki:
So what you shoot without intending to make it into a work of art at the time speaks to you later on. Morioka-san, is that also the case with Saul Leiter?
Morioka:
Saul Leiter's studio also has artwork displayed on the walls. There were paintings by him and his partner Soames Bantry and Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, but not even a single photograph, so that's the difference. At least when I visited his studio, the room was full of cameras, but there were almost no printed photographs on the walls. On the other hand, if there are any similiarities, it is that an artist can hear voices coming from their work. One of the fundamental qualities of an artist is that they goes back and forth between worlds – their world and the real world – expressing what they experience in one and the other.
◾️ What light and shadow echo in the‘TOKϴYO’/ No-man’s land to be in limbo.
Natsoumi:
In Kakuda City, Miyagi Prefecture, where I live, there is a festival called ‘Kanazu no Tanabata’ to mourn the spirits of the ancestors. It is a typical countryfestival with stalls selling candy apples and cotton candy. At the beginning of the festivities, children take part in a procession called ‘Karaokuri’ without lights or lanterns to drive away evil spirits, followed by a lantern procession called‘Hon-okuri’. I took a quick photo during the procession, but the light from the lanterns held by the people in front of me created streaks across the photo. When I saw it, I thought photography was shadow play. In other words, it made me realise that photography is not the world as it is seen but an inverted version of our world.
In this exhibition, I am conscious of shadows and have displayed negative shadow pictures on one wall of the space and positive light pictures on the opposite wall. Shadows play an essential role in my artistic vision, so I express a view of the world united by light and shadow. The viewer stands in the middle of it and I describe this place as being in a third world, which is neither this world nor the other world - the world of the ‘TOKϴYO（eternal land）’.
Suzuki:
Now that you have talked about the customs, ways of thinking and views on life and death in the Tohoku region (the Northeast of Japan) where you live, Natsoumi, can you talk a bit more about what it means to photograph things?
Natsoumi:
There is a Slovenian photographer called Evgen Bavcar, who Morioka-san previously presented in his book. When I got to know him, a blind photographer, I said to myself,' He is someone who thinks like me'. Bavcar says: 'Photography is the world reflected in the mirror of the mind'. In other words, he photographs the mental world: he uses the automatic shooting mode on his Leica, but he needs someone to act as a middle-man to take the picture. He asks that person, ‘What is the landscape in front of you like?' Then he asks the model, 'What pose are you in right now?' They talk to each other while he shoots.
He cannot see the photograph when it is printed, but his work is fully formed. The photographs are meaningful to the viewer and the artist himself in that his mental image has turned into a print, an object that he can actually touch. He says, 'Digital photography is blind in some ways. The reason is that with a digital camera, there is no middle-man. But a film camera burns an image onto a sensitive substance called film. Its function is very similar to what people burn onto their retinas'. I found this idea extremely interesting.
Evgen Bavcar's work
◾️After a decade of challenges and changes - the landscape ahead
Natsoumi:
To conclude our discussion, I would like to talk about an old festival in Tohoku that I visited recently. In February this year, I attended the Kandekko Age festival in Senboku City, Akita Prefecture. The villagers tie a pair of handmade hoes, called ‘Kandekko’, which are made of magnolia wood and a man-root made of walnut wood to each end of a sacred rope and then throw them at a sacred Katsura tree making wishes for the year ahead. ‘Kandekko’ combines three symbols: the hoe for ploughing the fields, the phallic root signifying the prosperity of offspring and grain. Men, women and children join together to throw this ‘Kandekko’ on the sacred tree. There is no shame in it and I felt as though this custom, which takes place in the snowy villages of the Tohoku region, overlaps with the worldview of ‘eternal land’, which I express as life, death and sexuality rising together as one in harmony.
Kandekko
I have always taken black-and-white photographs on film, but I am also showing colour work this time. In the book‘The Structure of Iki’ by Shuzou Kuki, there is a Buddhist term called ‘Kukai（苦海）'. In the book, there is a passage that compares this world to the sea and saysthat human beings float and sink in the sea, living their lives with stubbornness. The last 10 years have been full of ups and downs in my life. I came back from Paris to live in Fukushim, and about a year later, a nearby nuclear power station exploded. Over the last ose ten years, when I thought I would never find a way forward, I was confronted with black-and-white film photography.
The large-format colour work exhibited in the centre of this exhibition space was created by looking at the morning landscape of Shinonome and thinking, ‘It looks like the sea’ as I snapped the shutter. Exhibiting this work at this time made me realise that until now, I had been in Kukai, a world where life and death are intricately intertwined, continuously influencing one another. Floating and sinking there. I came out of the black-and-white world and printed colour, and I thought from the bottom of my heart that I had come full circle and returned to this world. I am sincerely grateful to have had the opportunity to hold a photographic exhibition at such a milestone in my life.
Suzuki:
Mr Morioka, who has given us this opportunity, please share your final remarks with us.
Morioka:
I have always taken black-and-white photographs on film, but I am also showing colour work this time. In the book‘The Structure of Iki’ by Shuzou Kuki, there is a Buddhist term called ‘Kukai（苦海）'. In the book, there is a passage that compares this world to the sea and saysthat human beings float and sink in the sea, living their lives with stubbornness. The last 10 years have been full of ups and downs in my life. I came back from Paris to live in Fukushim, and about a year later, a nearby nuclear power station exploded. Over the last ose ten years, when I thought I would never find a way forward, I was confronted with black-and-white film photography.
The large-format colour work exhibited in the centre of this exhibition space was created by looking at the morning landscape of Shinonome and thinking, ‘It looks like the sea’ as I snapped the shutter. Exhibiting this work at this time made me realise that until now, I had been in Kukai, a world where life and death are intricately intertwined, continuously influencing one another. Floating and sinking there. I came out of the black-and-white world and printed colour, and I thought from the bottom of my heart that I had come full circle and returned to this world. I am sincerely grateful to have had the opportunity to hold a photographic exhibition at such a milestone in my life.
In Jugyu-zu (Ten Bulls), the process of reaching Zen enlightenment is explained using ten pictures of cows, comparing the relationship between a cow and a herdsman. In the first picture, the herdsman loses sight of the cow. Then he finds tracks in the second picture. He finds the rampaging bull in the third picture, protects it with a rope around its neck in the fourth picture after a struggle. In the fifth picture they return home. Finally, in the sixth picture, he rides atop the cow and plays his flute on his way home, but in the seventh picture, the cow suddenly disappears, and he faces his own heart alone. The eighth picture is the climax. Not only the cow but he himself disappears, and the world goes completely blank. It is a world like an eternal land, where nothing disappears and you are in a state of oblivion. However, in the ninth picture, the herdsman returns to this world again. The tenth and final image is Nitten-suishu, a world of vivid colours. The herdsman who has returned to this world has somehow grown older and is wandering around the town, baring his legs, drinking sake and sharing sake with passersby, as if nothing has happened to them. From this perspective, Natsoumi's work is close to that worldview. The trajectory that Natsoumi has followed over the past ten years started with articles in colour magazines, went to black and white and then returned once more to colour. I came to realise that this story is just like Jugyu-zu.
Natsoumi:
You are right, Mr Morioka. Thank you very much for your attentiveness and all your kind words today.
Yoshiyuki MORIOKA is the owner of Morioka Shoten Ginza. Born in Yamagata Prefecture in 1974, he is also an accomplished author with books including A Used Bookstore in the Wilderness (Shobunsha) and BOOKS ON JAPAN 1931-1972 (BNN Shinsha).
Morioka has also been involved in planning exhibitions such as Crafts Near You at the Shiseido Gallery and Awe and Crafts at the Yamagata Biennale. In addition, he served as a judge for the 12th Shiseido Art Egg Award.
Junko SUZUKI is an independent curator and the representative of @J curation office.
After working for approximately 20 years at Jiji Press, Mori Art Museum, and the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan), she became an independent curator. She is now involved in PR, planning/management, and writing across a wide range of fields, with a focus on art and design.