Haruhiko Kawaguch’s image project has continued for more than a decade with images depicting people with their loved ones and their surroundings wrapped in an airtight film.
21.2. 14:35
Japanese photographer Haruhiko Kawaguchi has been pursuing a filming project for more than a decade where objects – both buildings and people – are covered with an airtight film wrap.
Haruhiko Kawaguchi
Kawaguchi from Tokyo (b. 1971), named Hal, says news media in an CNN interview exploring human intimacy with images that are only accentuated by wrapping in tight film.
“Wrapping started in the project, though, as a side issue,” he recalls. “My main purpose was to show the closeness of two people, which makes them seem to merge into one.”
Haruhiko Kawaguchi initially described the closeness of the two people.
At first, the topic was intimate love, but over the years the focus has shifted more to other relationships. Kawaguchi describes his latest shots as “memories of the family”.
For the Flesh Love project has been associated with many practical challenges from the outset.
For example, it has been necessary to find out how long people can hold their breath in an airtight state. The average time is fifteen seconds.
“So we had to let the subjects out of the bag in about ten seconds, whether the picture was taken or not,” Kawaguchi says.
The subject must be breathless and quiet.
In the first Flesh Love images, the lovers were packed in storage bags for futon mattresses. Now the scale has grown.
Packed in new images are not only people, like whole families, but also their immediate surroundings: the house, the yard, the cars, the motorcycles.
“The new images also convey a message about what individuals’ relationship to the world around them is, ”Kawaguchi says.
The subjects must practice their position carefully.
One picture preparation easily takes a couple of weeks a week.
The subjects are carefully practicing their postures so that they can reproduce in an airtight environment. Large items are wrapped in specially made plastic films.
Shooting arrangements require the help of many people, and someone is always ready to cut the tight film open and give extra oxygen if needed.
The photographer has also tried being in an airtight bag:
“I felt completely lost control of myself. As a photographer, I feel how confident my subjects are in my hands. ”
Haruhiko Kawaguch’s subjects are growing in size.
Kawaguchi is further increasing the size of the objects to be photographed: an entire park could be wrapped in film.
It already brings to mind a couple of French artists Christo Javacheffin and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebonin productions criticizing the consumer society, in which bridges and huge public buildings around the world were packaged in the late 20th century.
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