Lone Islands (2023 - ongoing)
Lone Islands has as starting point the low birth rate observed in Japan, which is currently the oldest country in the world, and expands to become political, societal, social, cultural and intimate. I look at the causes and consequences of this "problem" and its possible solutions. The images produced so far are the result of a two-month residency at 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo and a one-month trip to Kyushu and Yakushima Island in order to establish a comparison between urban and rural territory. This work depicts a portrait of actual Japan, far from the time when the country experienced flamboyant economic growth between the 1960s and 1990s. After the oil shock of 1973 and the bursting of the speculative bubble in the 1990s , today the Archipelago is facing a decline, also demographically. The number of marriages continues to
decrease while the number of single people increases. The current era and economic difficulties highlight the limits of the nuclear family where it is always the mother's responsibility to take care of the house and the children. This work also includes a sociological approach; so far approximately 60 people were interviewed and the subjects of family, love, masculinity, gender inequalities, patriarchy, aging, end of life, relationship to work, mental health, social pressure, the isolation that can be felt when living in a megalopolis,… are broached with a desire to deconstruct stereotypes about Japan, to bring nuance and to highlight the complexity of the subject studied as a whole. What if, in addition to economic stagnation, this demographic decline resulted from the opposition between tradition and modernity?
