岡田裕子

hiroko okada

In contemporary society, the body is treated as a domain expected to remain in a satisfactory state, thereby securing a sense of reassurance for those who inhabit it. Within a gaze that presupposes comfort, beauty, and continual improvement, ways of relating to the body are oriented in advance, and such orientations come to be understood as one’s own desires.
This photographic work documents kyūkon—the marks left by moxibustion—borne by bodies that find themselves in a relation at odds with their own expectations. The kyūkon depicted here are produced through experiences accompanied by intense heat, appearing on the skin as undeniable signs that the body cannot be fully managed or controlled.
These marks do not signify therapeutic outcomes or narratives of recovery. Rather, they persist as traces of encounters in which the body is received as an other—points where bodily experience, practice, culture, and history quietly intersect.
Through these traces, which will eventually fade, the photographs capture a quiet, convivial celebration of life: remaining in conversation with the body, attending to its living presence as one might a neighbor, neither mastered nor resolved.

Welcoming the Trace: Receiving the Fire

In contemporary society, the body has been shaped as something expected to respond to our expectations.
This workshop explores an alternative relationship with the body by inviting heat—something we would normally prefer to avoid—to be intentionally received by the body.
After a brief introductory conversation, participants will experience moxibustion. The heat of moxa is not comfortable, and its sensation and intensity cannot be fully controlled. Through this heat as a form of “intensity,” participants quietly encounter the body as an other—unpredictable, resistant, and not entirely their own.
This is neither treatment nor relaxation. Rather, it is a workshop that questions our relationship with the body—simply welcoming the “flame.”

Time: 11:00–17:00
Duration: 15–20 minutes
Participation Fee: ¥1,000
Capacity: 2 people

Reservations:
Please send a message via Instagram DM to the account below.
@mangara_momiji
(Reservation required by the day before.)

Venue: Momiji Acupuncture Studio
Instagram: @tabimomiji_deautabi
Address: 28-10 Okazaki Nishifukunokawacho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan