Entry Title: " Facets of femininity, the Geisha apprentice"
Name: Regis Defurnaux, Belgium
Category: Non-Professional, Deeper Perspective


Story: This series is an attempt to bring a deeper perspective on the Maiko (a Geisha apprentice) existing as a facet of Japanese femininity. Suffering from a surface level of understanding, Maiko are beings far beyond appearances. Their essence is in the making: they learn, they bloom. They personify animistic metamorphoses, mimicking the seasons with their kimonos, hairstyles, songs, dances ... They artistically mirror the ephemeral composition of human existence. Iconic, fantasized, living history, they are however not a « vanishing world », they are ephemeral. It is neither a « forbidden world », they are intimate living beings. They are also way beyond the simple traditional modernity template: Maiko deeply interact within the context of the reconfiguration of femininity in progress in Japan. They are an inherent part of the society as models and confidantes. These images speak about their metamorphoses; their identity as a “living art form”; the encompassment they embody; the contrasting relationships of femininity models; and the future of Maiko in a modern consumerist society. And, as an occidental photographer, they are simultaneously a selflessness and a self-awareness: I am going with them through the mirror they use to make up and transform, possessing my own visual grammar and fantasies. With the imaginary journey they made into Western world, we could share a renewal of perspective, in a deeper attempt to understand the unique relation they hold to femininity, gender issues and our genuine human condition: a native sense of immediacy and a strange feeling of permanency.

As a young boy, I was fascinated by the embrace between people’s imaginations and paintings. After that, studying photography came as a path to explore this very strange relation. I then abandoned for a while images and studied History (MA), Anthropology (MA) and Philosophy (PHD): trying to understand and feel the essence of moments, ideas and diversity. In the making of a picture, within an intimate relation, there is an opportunity to bind strong ideas, genuine emotions and raw instinct. In that spirit, I came back to photography and started to work on ephemeral realities and questions of identity and imagination. My recent photographic works have ranged from investigating the creative process of a modern dance performance; followed by four months in a Palliative Care Unit, breathing the last breath with people; and then seven months in Kyoto, trying to understand the ritualization of everyday life - in collaboration with EPA photojournalists. Witnessing the cherry blossom, I had a brief intuition that the Maiko (Geisha apprentice) were like these flowers… and like all of us. I have been working on this project for the last 3 years, and simultaneously completing my PHD in Philosophy.