Works
Photo Story
「Argentine Geisha / 阿根廷艺妓」
Taken In Argentina.
2015〜2019
Kaori is a 37 years old woman who gave up all her life in Japan, escaped to Buenos Aires for her love of Tango.
Gambling all her saving and life, tries to find her happiness in this opposite side of her hometown.
Tango is the only access that she found to be happy, to feel beloved, which she didn't feel as a Japanese way of living.
With nearly no money, no proper job, she is trying to be a Tango singer in Argentina.
There is something about Kaori that attracted me in a peculiar way.
It was something more than just how a Japanese woman came all the way to Argentina for tango.
Also about the desire to be happy, to be loved by someone, to live. Both Japanese and Latin culture are shaping her identity,
it appears this sense of incongruity in the every photo .
This is a series about a regular woman, trying to overcome the barrier
of language, culture, getting through all the struggle, misunderstanding,
seeks for happiness in a different way of living, the beauty of living.
Kei is a 37 years old Japanese woman from Nagoya who gave up all her life in Japan, came to Buenos Aires to be a professional tango dancer .
Without speaking any Spanish, with a job, gambling all her saving and life to be “the dancer” that she dreams about, not about fame,
just to be the only one, the unique one. She always say she can feel the flame of tree inside her is waiting to be explode.
The distance between Nagoya and Buenos Aires is about 18,358 kilometers, the two culture is extremely different from each other in every sense. Partnering with an argentine male dancer, for achieving the perfect harmony in dancing,
they have to go through tons of fighting, misunderstanding, communication, disappointing and exhausting almost everyday
to understand each other as a person, as a different culture.
It makes their partnership hundreds times harder than other partners within the same culture.
As Kei said, to overcome of barrie between language, culture, age, man and woman,
all those thing they’re facing everyday makes it more difficult but also more strongly connected.