In 2013, the French artist Chloé Jafé moved to Tokyo with the ambition to meet the women of the Yakuza. But no one enters this mafia, one of the most legendary in the world, without being invited. After spending a year perfecting her Japanese, immersing herself in the codes of a culture miles apart from her own, having been a hostess in a bar and combing the city's red light districts, the lock finally broke in. Through a lucky encounter and out of temerity.Inducted by a Boss, she was able to approach these padlocked clans, their official rituals and gatherings, the taboo and tattooed stories that their kimonos camouflage, and through them, their wives, daughters and mistresses.
Women lurking in the shadow of the men to whom they have dedicated their existence, marked on the skin by this dedication which automatically excludes them from society. The “gift of one’s life”, Inochi Azukemasu in Japanese, constitutes the first part of her trilogy.
In this photographic and sentimental wandering, the second chapter of Chloe Jafé’s trilogy, the photographer paints a portrait with great accuracy of this island, isolated from the rest of Japan. In Okinawa, which was destroyed during WWII, time seems to have stopped. Jafé commits to reveal the stigmata of a past that still binds the facades and faces and the dark corners of an island where pirates in distress and good-time ladies continue to flock.
Her work brings to light men and women ostracised from society, who have established performance as a religion, unveiling their peculiarity in all its tenderness and its distress.
The final chapter of Chloé Jafé’s trilogy is an ode to the fallen Osaka. In this city, the third largest in the country, Jafé has travelled extensively in the district of Nishinari, a district erased from tourist guides that attracts a population mainly made up of men, mostly over 760 years old. There she met and photographed homeless people, transvestites, retirees from criminality and those rejected by capitalism who preferred to hide there rather than face the shame of being fired.
Through this work, Jafé tells their stories and tries to modestly rehabilitate an unknown and troubled part of Japan.
Complete trilogy in a slipcase with screen print. Limited edition of 40.
stock number: NB546
