Kozuke Okahara- self-mutilation in Japan

Kozuke Okahara is a documentry photographer from Japan. He classes his work under the theme of "Ibasyo” which refers in Japanese, to “the physical and emotional space in which people exist” which includes work in Dufur, illegal activites such as drug activity in collumbia as well as the collection that is most relevent to me- self mutilation in japan. His photos focus on girls in different areas of Japan that mutilate there own bodies or have to deal with mental illness. They are shot in black and white and often feature the girls in situations in relation to what is wrong. The images are Black and white and are accompanied by the stories of the girls in the photos.

Examples of Okaharas work:

The first image caption:

Kaori, 23 years old, relaxes in her room. She rolls bandage to stop bleeding after she cut her arm.

Image two caption:

Akane, 26 years old, has been suffering depression and self-injury for over 4 years.

Image three caption:

Japan, 2008 Sayuri, 22 years old, who has been suffering from self-injury, driving a car at night. She just quit her job since her condition became really bad and could not continue to work normally. Sayuri had experiences of sexual abuses in her childhood and that triggered self-injury.


As you can see Okahara uses a mix of styles, form frame within a frame, to portraits, to more extreame images ( one of a woman collapesed from an over dose, and a few photographs focused on the wounds.