In My Bloody Hand, published by Little Big Man, Japanese photographer Momo Okabe confronts the grief of her miscarriages through the lens of a microscope… before finding her way back to life through poetry.
Okabe experienced four miscarriages. During one, a small form appeared nestled in the palm of her hand, mixed with blood. Believing it to be the fetus, she chose to preserve it. This marked the beginning of a long period in which observing this organism under a microscope became an act of creation, transforming suffering into an artistic gesture.
The worlds revealed by this magnification crystallized under the photographer’s lens. Her camera has always been a tool of resilience, a way to shield herself from pain: “Accepting reality as it is can be too painful, so I take photographs in order to keep living.” From Dildo (2013) and Bible (2014) to Ilmatar (2020), the medium has become a way to shape intimate and dreamlike universes, reflecting her relationship to the body, marginality and vulnerability.
Night after night, Momo Okabe devoutly returned to this trace of life her body had left, ritualizing this period of observation as a stage in the grieving process. This cathartic phase occupies two-thirds of the book. It unfolds on dense, glossy black paper, at the center of which emerges a sphere, like a planet floating in the void. The book’s distinctive large format intensifies this sensation, immersing the reader fully in her sorrow. Like a mantra or a prayer, the sphere represented across fifty pages, offering a new microscopic tableau with each appearance. Together, these images form a constellation of abstract, colorful visions, radiating the persistent light of life.
Gradually, grief gives way to the pulse of life that floods the pages: a pregnant silhouette, a sleeping newborn, a child’s hand reaching for a nurturing breast, the curious face of a little girl. What is she looking at? Still lifes or fragments of urban and natural landscapes echo her gaze. This staccato flow of images is bathed in the electric tones favoured by Momo Okabe, saturated with pinks and greens. Through them, she blurs the line between dream and reality, revealing the world as she perceives it, a world where life and poetry are one.
Momo Okabe — My Bloody Hand
Published by Little Big Man
298 × 229 mm
144 pages
Available in January 2026
