IBASYO, SELF-MUTILATION IN JAPAN (Japan, 2007)
There is almost nowhere else on earth where the individual is under such great pressure to perform as in Japan. It is the land of hikikimori– voluntary self-isolation by young people who can no longer cope with the pressures of society. The photographer Kosuke Okahara has focused on another outgrowth: self-mutilation. Particularly young women damage their own bodies, sometimes in an attempt to exercise control over their own lives, sometimes in order to ‘just still feel something’. Often the self-harming is the result of a history of physical and sexual abuse. By revealing the self-mutilation Okahara hopes to break through the prevailing taboo around the subject.
