Studio Islander - Collaborative Art Unit -

Collaboration Project

islands	Japanese Males - Surrender 2003 - on going, size of one photographs, 43" x 85", digital print, paper We started with two focal points of the project: the idea of "surrender" in the war zones and the stereotyped masculinity (sexuality) of Japanese males. The investigation of the U.S.-Japan political relationship after the WWII suggested me a dynamic connection between those two points. That is the ambivalent or ambiguous relation of "who forced to surrender" and "who was forced to surrender." "Who forced", naturally, took power on "who was forced", but the relation does not end at the simple power relationship. "Who forced" needs to do some tasks as their responsibility, and "who was forced" takes advantage of it. "Surrender" is a contract. "Surrender" is a contract of unstable power relationships at a catastrophic point. That ambiguous power relationship happens between the overwhelming size of those photos and the viewers.
japanese males

Japanese Males Surrender -Taro Hattori & Mayumi Hamanaka, Studio Islander