shashasha

This publication comprises two photobooklets, two postcards and a poster, featuring two series by Aya Fujioka from the 1990s.

Back then, as the roles and possibilities of young women in Japan underwent many changes there was a boom of “girl photography”. Fujioka, herself part of the genre at the time, presents two series that reexamine not only this particular period in Japan’s (photography) history but also look back at Fujioka’s earliest beginnings, shot during her time at the Nihon University College of Art.

“Ayako Ekoda-kibun” (lit. “Ayako Ekoda Mood”) is a photo essay created when she lived in a boarding house in Ekoda in Tokyo and follows her memories of the time she spent with her old landlord. “My Life as a Dog”, meanwhile, features snapshots of children that Fujioka encountered, taken as if Fujioka superimposed herself on her subjects.

A small essay booklet with testimonies and anecdotes by seven people who knew Aya Fujioka during those days is also part of this collection.

“I may see my own childhood self in a ‘dog’, or I might have still looked like a hungry ‘dog’ myself when I was wandering around with a camera hanging around my neck as a student. I was carefree then: entering an alley sniffing, peeking around sometimes getting snacks from strangers. The experience of walking around with my camera and encountering unexpected situations and people by chance has become the starting point for me.”
― from Aya Fujioka’s afterword in “My Life as a Dog”

Please note that only Fujioka’s afterword in “My Life as a Dog” is included in English translation.