Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History

Absence and place

When an unknown photographer took a photograph of a moderately wealthy family in his studio in northeastern Japan’s Tōhoku region, the father was not there. The studio, although designed to be invisible, is revealed to viewers upon closer inspection; notice the mock-grand door frame behind the group and the painted outline of a door behind the partly pulled curtain . A professional photographer took the photograph of the assembled family members – six children, their grandmother or maid, and a young woman who was likely the mother of one, some, or all of the children. However, using a technique known as kessei waku or “frame of absence,” the photographer materialised the absent patriarch. The result is that father seems to float and preside over the family image, which is as comical as it is indicative of the aesthetic malleability of both the photographic moment and the social purpose of the image. In the case of this unknown family, the floating father reinforces the purpose of the family photograph as an exercise designed to display all members. It also suggests that the photograph offered a way to be present while absent.

The potential of the photograph to transform male absence from the family, from historic assumption to gendered space is at the heart of the work this module hopes to do in talking about men and the ideas and experiences of family spaces in postwar Japan. This loose image, while separate to the albums that make up most of this module, offers us something to "think with" (Darnton 1984) in using images of and from families to consider the gendered power play behind who or what is "made visible" in the historic record - both personal and public (Thomas 2008). 
 

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