牟禮朱美

Akemi Mure

The general image of “adolescence” is disseminated and affirmed through social media. The methods of expression used sometimes even incite girls to express some feeling or take some action. However, I feel uncomfortable using formulaic forms of expression. I created this work in a hushed tone, because if I expressed it out loud, the words would be embellished and the meaning changed.

During the shoot, the girls wore uniforms and blended in with their surroundings, maintaining a certain distance from me, as though a bit confused. The uniforms caused the viewer to put thinking on hold, helping the girls to silently express themselves. Awkward conversation stopped, and it seemed as though the camera lens was the single object to which the attention of both viewer and subjects was drawn. Gradually, I began to see the uniforms as chrysalises protecting the incompletely formed girls from outside pressures.

In the age of social networking, these girls are afraid of being arbitrarily identified with some image. If they are shifting within the safety of their chrysalis, while presenting the fixed image of a blank space to the outside world for the time being, then I thought that I should simply observe them, unknowing, instead of looking for easy answers in media images. If they are perplexed, then we should be perplexed too. It is in this back-and-forth gaze that their “true attitude,” camouflaged by the name “adolescence,” is revealed.