ayuwatanabe

[ayuwatanabe]

My interview article on City Magazine Hong Kong is now published in both online & print. You may check here : http://cityhowwhy.com.hk/art/528 Appreciate if someone could translate it to English since I don’t understand Chinese...

香港の雑誌で私のインタビュー記事が載っています。ウェブ、プリント媒体共に出版されています。リンクはこちらから→ http://cityhowwhy.com.hk/art/528 中国語わからないので訳してくれる方がもしいましたら教えてください...!

[ayuwatanabe]

【ニコンフォトコンテスト入賞しました】 50周年を迎えたニコンフォトコンテストに、私の作品が選ばれました。世界170におよぶ国と地域から過去最高の合計約33,000人、97,369作品の応募があったそうです。とても恐縮です。 入賞した「東京アンダーグラウンド」という作品はニコンフォトコンテストオフィシャルページ @nikonphotocontest にて3言語(日本語 • 英語 • 中国語)で閲覧可能です❤︎ 

Nominated for the Nikon Photography Contest. My work has been selected by expert judges from over 97,000 entries gathered from 170 countries and regions around the world. Available to see my work “Tokyo Underground” on @nikonphotocontestwith 3 languages (English, Japanese, Chinese) <3

[ayuwatanabe]

#tokyo

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My work is up on PERJUS Magazine

[ayuwatanabe]

私の写真の展示がラフォーレ原宿のポップアップストア、RASPBERRYPIEにて1/3まで開催されています。ポストカードもあります♥ Go check my prints and postcards at Laforet Harajuku Pop up store “RASPBERRYPIE” until 1/3.

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#tokyo

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#photography

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#ayu watanabe

[ayuwatanabe]

作品「対人恐怖症：アンダーグラウンド東京」がGrunge 'n' Art Magazineに掲載されています。

Photographic works with the statement "Underground Tokyo" now up on Grunge 'n' Art Magazine.

[ayuwatanabe]

日英バイリンガル雑誌、BGUの撮影を担当しました。

Photographed a story for BGU Magazine.

[ayuwatanabe]

インタビュー記事がウェブメディア、TABI LABOに記載されています。 My works & story up on TABI LABO. Please give it a read.

[ayuwatanabe]

Pink Feminist English ver.

　You will see hundreds of advertisements regarding hair removal, plastic surgery or diet supplement everywhere in Japan. That makes me uncomfortable and it seems like the beauty industry is trying women to feel shame and have complex with body image. Having body hair, gaining weights, aging… they all are natural in terms of living but they are considered as ugly things of women. However, human being is very beautiful for me even though it is seen as dirty. Also, why are these propagandas for female ONLY? Why are armpit hair and leg hair called Muda (waste, useless) -hair while women are required to take care of their long hair which stands feminine? Shaving hair can be beautiful but not shaving hair also can be beautiful. Both are just fine and it is our choice. No one has the right to comment negatively to others’ appearance. Even if you are fat or skinny, remember that there are always people who likes and dislikes, you cannot be everyone’s favourite because there is no standard of true beauty. I had been suffering eating disorder and social anxiety for years. When I lost tons of weights, no one actually cares. When I got fat because of overeating, no one also cares. People around me actually do not care how I look than I thought. The cause of this problem is that, no one loved me because I did not love myself and I did not love myself because no one loved me. My self-hate could not stop and I feel very uncomfortable with being myself and my appearance. I was scared to look at mirrors. The only thing I could control is what I eat but that was not a solution. I just wanted love from someone special, I care about and I realized that being skinny is not what everyone expects me. Therefore, I focused to accept myself first and have a healthy life. Now I might be fat comparing with the Japanese beauty propaganda standard, but I feel better with myself than before. Self-love is beautiful no matter what appearance because your body is for yourself, not for someone else. Here, I want to celebrate everyone’s scar, tattoo, body hair, cellulite, acne… everything is just so LOVELY and they have the possibility to be seen as beautiful!

  I had been avoiding to confess that “I AM A FEMINIST”. Because here in Japan, the image, the bias of feminist does not follow the true definition. Feminist is considered as the aggressive woman with masculine appearance. If you are following my social medias, you can probably understand (and some of you might be like me) that I am far from those images. I am sensitive, weak, and I respect all gender and sexuality. I do not think that every woman should be strong and independent. You can call yourself feminist while wearing very girly, lace outfits if you would like. Men and women are different but both sexes have its own powers and beauties. I do not claim that I want to completely eliminate the wall between men and women. We should be free from from gender stereotype, pressure, which social bias consists. The original definition of feminism is the belief that both men and women have equal rights. Men do not have to be masculine and women also do not have to be feminine. We can be whatever be like. For instance, Japanese medias use the word "女子力（Girl Power）" for product promotion activities. Gaining Girl Power means becoming a girl, who can cook, wearing clean make-up (putting too much make-up sometimes considered as a slut / bitch) and fashionable clothes. I was disappointed that such as propaganda vocabularies only focus on female and everyone naturally accepts without any doubts. One of the most famous magazines, “VOGUE” wrote the article about the ideal women for getting men’s attention. The title of the article is "The best way to seduce men is not improving language skill, there are more important things." It says women's appearance is the most important for men and there is no need to study, learn foreign languages, cultures, traveling because it is meaningless from the point of view to get men's attention. I was sad to see that such a famous fashion magazine said like this. Both internal and external of women are not for men’s attention, we learn / dress up for ourselves if we want. In addition, there are thousands of articles besides VOGUE magazines, mostly not for men, but only those made for women. First of all, women do not need to be interested in makeup and fashion. No matter how painful, boring and lonely my life is, I can be happy just wearing my favourite outfits, so fashion is for myself and I was shocked to see that many Japanese medias tell people that being fashionable is equal to seducing men. Certainly, it is nice to dress up just for someone else but if you like dressing up purely, please enjoy it for yourself first. Every Woman does not need to be interested in them and it is waste of money, time and stressful to make effort what you do not like. Plus, I realize the personality comes out on the appearance, so the core of being fashionable is not what you put on outside actually. The person who is charming and having confidence all look cool in appearance naturally.

　I’ve never seen a parade of LGBTQ before my first travel to England. There were many men wearing pink, frills, lovely clothes, walking with boyfriend…it was just so beautiful. In Japan, many X gender or gay people cannot confess their sexualities because people make fun of them just like Japanese TV shows do. Many medias treat LGBTQ people like they are the funniest creatures and the audience take it seriously. I did not like pink and those girly stuffs personally, but I feel strong power from it since this parade. Women wear pants but men do not wear skirts and everyone call sissy / gay when they see men wearing pink, feminine items. That ambivalence is interesting that I felt strong power from pink, but it is also seen as socially weak and childish. This project, I create it very pink and put feminine atmosphere on purpose. It is kind of ironic because I call myself feminist, but the image which the society created is completely different with me and my works. I want to break the traditional prejudice of the feminist women who has short hair, male looking and isolated women (never fell in love with men). However, I believe feminist women can wear adorable and romantic items while showing body hair or spreading their legs like ordinary men in public. I want to be feminist but I also want to be seen as cute and feminine. Historically, the images of women are created by mostly male artists such as paintings and pictures. That’s why it feels very meaningful that an ordinary girl like me captures the female gaze.

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[ayuwatanabe]

My interview article on creative social media, Be inspired! magazine.

私のインタビュー記事が社会派ウェブメディア、Be inspired!に掲載されています。