shashasha

“Gift”, Japanese artist Mari Katayama’s first photobook, is a retrospective of works made since her debut in 2005 and a chronicle of her evolution as an artist. Katayama, who was born with only two fingers on her left hand and had her lower legs amputated at the age of nine due to tibial hemimelia, creates her works in dialogue with her body. The book begins with photos of objects – prosthetics, intricately decorated and embroidered and made of plastic or cloth or other materials – photographed in isolation first before Katayama appears before the camera as well. Her photographs are a fascinating, complex play between sculpture, self-portrait, documentation, self-assertion and self-expression.

“The world is a big place, and we can do anything in it, but it is all mapped out, and we are all going to die one day. So here I am, spending another day between endlessness and limitations, against a backdrop that never changes.” — from Mari Katayama’s foreword

The book also includes an essay by Simon Baker (director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris) (all texts available in English and Japanese).

“If I had to pick one photobook as my favourite this year, it would be this one — for all the reasons outlined above and all the other ones I still cannot put into words.” — review by Jörg M. Colberg