On Tuesday, July 2, 2024, Kering and the Rencontres d’Arles will present the Women In Motion Award to Japanese photographer, Ishiuchi Miyako, at the Théâtre antique d’Arles. During this special evening, she will present her work and share with the audience her personal journey and her view of women’s place in photography and society in general.
The topic of women representation permeates Ishiuchi’s work in subtle yet powerful ways. She critiques the objectification of women by reclaiming the female body as subjects of her art. Her photographs celebrate imperfections, scars, and aging, the standards of beauty shown by mainstream media. By presenting this intimacy, Ishiuchi invites viewers to confront their own perceptions of femininity and womanhood.
ABOUT ISHIUCHI MIYAKO
Ishiuchi Miyako was born in 1947 in Gunma Prefecture, Japan. She grew up in the city of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture. In 1979, she won the 4th Kimura Ihei Award for her work Apartment. In 2005, she represented Japan at the Venice Biennale with her series Mother’s, for which she photographed items inherited from her late mother. In 2007, she began her internationally renowned ひろしま/hiroshima series, for which she photographs belongings of atom bomb victims (hibakusha). In 2013, she received the Japanese Medal of Honor with purple ribbon and in 2014 the “Hasselblad Award” (known as the “Nobel prize for photography”).
Recent exhibitions include the solo shows Ishiuchi Miyako: Postwar Shadows (J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2015), Grain and Image (Yokohama Museum of Art, 2017), Ishiuchi Miyako (Each Modern, Taiwan, 2022), Ishiuchi Miyako (Stills, Edinburgh, UK, 2022), and group show Roppongi Crossing (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2022). Her photobook Frida: Love and Pain (Iwanami Shoten) was published in 2016. Ishiuchi’s works are part of the permanent collections of Tokyo’s National Museum of Modern Art, the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, the Yokohama Museum of Art, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Tate Modern.
THE WOMEN IN MOTION LAB 2024
I’M SO HAPPY YOU ARE HERE, JAPANESE WOMEN PHOTOGRAPHERS FROM THE 1950S TO NOW
The third instalment of the Women In Motion LAB will highlight the contribution made by Japanese women photographers. This first collective exhibition in France dedicated to this history will feature twenty-five photographers, including Kawauchi Rinko, Nagashima Yurie, Sugiura Kunié, Ushioda Tokuko, and Yamazawa Eiko, among others. Curated by Lesley A. Martin, Takeuchi Mariko and Pauline Vermare and produced by Aperture and the Rencontres d’Arles, the group show will take place at the Palais de l’Archevêché in Arles. Likewise entitled I’m So Happy You Are Here, Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now, this first publication on the topic, edited by Lesley A. Martin and Pauline Vermare with Carrie Cushman, Kellie Midori McCormick, and Mariko Takeuchi, will be published by Aperture in English and Éditions Textuel in French.
The first Women In Motion LAB-supported project, which ran from 2019 to 2021, funded the research that led to the French publication of a reference work – A world history of women photographers; it also supported its English edition. For the second LAB program, started in 2021, Kering and the Rencontres d’Arles supported research to promote Bettina Grossman’s archives by the artist Yto Barrada, with an eponymous book, Bettina, and an exhibition of her work held as part of the festival in 2022.
Through projects like ひろしま/hiroshima and Mother’s, she confronts Japan’s wartime past and its impact on individual lives, especially women who were often overlooked in historical narratives. In her artistic practice, Ishiuchi Miyako embodies the principles of female empowerment by advocating for women’s autonomy and representation. Through her photographs, she continues to inspire dialogue on gender, culture, and memory in today’s society.
In Kyoto in 2023, Kering proudly supported the exhibition Views through my window, a dialogue between Ishiuchi Miyako and Touyama Yuhki, as part of its partnership with KYOTOGRAPHIE International Photography Festival.
