shashasha

For the photobook Aya, London-based photographer Francesco Allen spent a month in Tokyo photographing Japanese musician Aya Yanase, better known as Aya Gloomy.
Despite the lack of a shared spoken language between Allen and Gloomy, during their month together the two begin to develop a connection which grows more and more intimate; they explore Tokyo, miss late night trains, Allen meets Aya’s friends. In Allen’s soft, introspective, pastel-colored portrays of Aya Gloomy—in her home, in the streets of Tokyo, in an old bathhouse, in a giant photo studio—she also captured a fascinating kind of girlhood, unthreatening yet decisively self-confident.

“The work builds a sense of belonging and friendship as Francesca turns her gaze adoringly on Aya, harnessing her energy to reveal strength and fragility. Aya is the represented subject, but through her photographs and the relationship that emerges between the two women, the division between representer and subject is diffused and we also understand a little of Francesca.”
—from the publisher’s description