A Japanese Girl, 2025
Double-sided frames with cabinet card from Slemmons collection, portraits of artist (gelatin silver print, Polaroid, Fuji instant film) and found photographs
Slemmons collection
Responding to the written inscription on the back of a cabinet card from the Slemmons collection, A Japanese Girl considers the cultural biases present within archival practices. The work proposes a revision of the visual lexicon of “a Japanese girl” by expanding the original singular archive with portraits of the artist and found photographs. There is indeed an image of a Japanese girl on the front and the double-sided frame seems to offer an opportunity to confirm this. The new archive however, is a collection ofimages withholds the typical identifiers (facial features, clothing, location) that support an archetypal system from which the original descriptor derives.The photographs eschew the frontal gaze, never revealing a face. This simple gesture encourages a reevaluation of the parameters that inform what one might expect a Japanese girl to look like. These latent, preconceived images are met with a different visual narrative: the traditional Japanese updo hairstyles and the “signature bun,” a recognizable feature of the artist. All markers of a Japanese girl.