Session
Press
セッション
プレス
Dildo
ディルド
Momo Okabe
岡部桃

Credit

—Photography: Momo Okabe
—Design: Momo Okabe


Specs

—11.5" x 11.5"
—Soft cover
—92 pages
—Edition of 55
—2013
—OUT OF PRINT


Reviews
—Glamcult, France
—FOAM Magazine
—Dazed
—Refinery

Session Press is pleased to announce the first US official monograph, "Dildo" by Momo Okabe.

Okabe’s work has been acclaimed by Nobuyoshi Araki and Masafumi Sanai through the prestigious photo competitions for young talents in Japan; New Cosmos of Photography (99) and EPSON prizes (09). However, her name still remains relatively unknown to the photo market in Japan possibly because her depictions of subjects are considered excessively sexual and provocative.

"Dildo" is about her 7 years romantic journey with her lover, Kaori and Yoko and Okabe recalls their relationships:

"I met Kaori when I was 24 years old and it was summer. Kaori was a woman and had a gender identity disorder. We broke up after three years. Then, I met Yoko and we became lovers.

Yoko went to Thailand for sex reassignment surgery and removed her uterus. It was as small as a fist. I heard that people’s lives could be shortened when they remove their reproductive organs and received hormone therapy regularly. Since Yoko doesn’t have her uterus and breasts any longer, she can apply for a new family register as a man.

Kaori went through a breast removal operation and lives in Canada now. I wonder if people laugh at us when they know about our story. But we are not doing anything wrong."

Growing up in France for four years in her childhood, Okabe felt isolated all the time as an outsider. She could not speak to any of her classmates at school, so she started to fantasize her own ideal world alone. Even when she came back to Tokyo with her family later, she felt that she didn’t belong anywhere because Tokyo appeared to be too materialistic for her. Only through taking a pictures, she is able to express her inner voice and believes that photography is the place where she exists and relies on. Dildo beautifully depicts her loneliness and happiness and shares the fleeting moments in love we all have cherished at least one time in life.

日本語で読む

セッションプレス第2冊目の写真集は、東京在住の作家、岡部桃の『ディルド』です。本書は、性転換したふたりの恋人との関係(2004-09)を撮った作品で構成されています。家族写真の様なフォーマットで綴じをリンクバインディングにし、50部限定で発刊しました。本書の一枚一枚の写真は、岡部自身が貼り、作家自身の想いが込められた写真集に仕上がりました。アウトサイダーである2人の友人のあがきと戦いが, 万華鏡の様に美しく光る岡部のレンズを通して、丁寧に表現されています。

Momo Okabe
岡部桃

Momo Okabe
(Japan, 1981)

Momo Okabe was born in Japan in 1981 and received his B.F.A. in photography from Nihon University in 2004. She received the Special Award “The 8th Exhibition of New Cosmos of Photography in 2009 and selected Nobuyoshi Araki,” “P3 art and environment, Tokyo” in 1999 when Okabe was still in high school. Okabe has shown her work for “Japanese nude photography” at Museum Sieboldhuis, Leiden in 2019, Works from the Foam Collection, Foam Museum, Amsterdam in 2018, Unssen, Amsterdam In 2017, Belfast Photo Festival, Ireland in 2017 Paul Hof Prize at FOAM museum in 2016 and Bible & Dildo at Gallery Naruyama in Tokyo 2015 and so on. Okabe has published “Dildo” (Session Press, 2013), “Unseen / Tsunami” (co published with Kokey Kanno by Dashwood Books, 2012), “Dildo” (Artbeat Publisher, 2010)

日本語で読む

岡部桃
(1981年・日本)

1981年、日本に生まれる。4歳まで、フランスで過ごす。日本大学芸術学部写真学科を卒業する。第8回キャノン写真新世新世紀展での優秀賞授賞(荒木経惟選)や、第19回ひとつぼ展入賞。国内外の著名なギャラリーや、美術館でで多くの展示会を開催する。