A book questioning the relationship with food and the body in the specific context of Japanese society: mixes testimonies, photographs, illustrations, archive pictures. Entirely handmade and self-published book.
Eating is never just a technical act. A source of pleasure or a control tool over one’s body, a way to connect with people or solitary delight, uninhibited or generating anxiety, our relationship with food can take different faces. It is intimately connected to our emotions, and acts as a subtle revealer of our social and family history. But where does it lay its foundations?
Katherine Longly was overweight when she was a child. Between control and pleasure, her link with food is always occupied by the ghost of those childhood memories, which shape the image of oneself with force and persistence. She questioned these issues beyond her own experience, in the particular context of Japanese society, where the pressure held on people’s bodies seems more intense than elsewhere.
During several residencies in the archipelago, the artist interviewed various people on the subject of their relationship with food and their bodies and recorded their stories. We can thus understand how Yuki sank into anorexia, little by little, to end up being only able to swallow liquids; how Ren managed to protect herself from the outside world thanks to her mother’s bentos; how Kenichi reacted when he was categorized “metabo” after having his waistline measured by the municipality; how Mina managed to reconnect with a missing mother while cooking with her brothers; or how Rika has been able to hide his bulimia from everyone for more than twenty years.
Then Katherine asked these individuals to illustrate this relationship from their own point of view, using a disposable camera. This specific tool was chosen by design, because it doesn’t allow any control over the final image, contrasting with the apparent perfection of images posted on social media. As a result, the pictures are filled with a certain kind of photographic freshness and lead to the possibility of being surprised by images of upsetting sincerity.
At the crossroads of art and anthropology, this book, made in close collaboration with all the interviewees, invites everyone to dig to discover where their relationship with food and their body is rooted.