shashasha

Each summer, Japanese photographer Ayaka Yamamoto travels to European countries whose languages she does not speak – Latvia, France, Belarus etc. – driven by her interest in “pre-linguistic” communication.
The models in her otherworldly, sensitive yet heavy portrait photographs are girls she asks herself, using sounds and gestures, or finds through friends. In her foreword, she explains that “by giving things names, people feel like they can know all things in this world.” Once language is removed, however, “you might be able to see the nature of an existence without belonging to any one person, place, or thing.”
The photobook “We are made of Grass, Soil and Trees” consists of photographs taken in Russia, Latvia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania taken between 2014 and 2017.