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Saitama Triennale is an international art festival held in the prefecture of Saitama. For the 2023 edition, we were in charge of curating and producing a project called the "Portrait Project". Simply put, the project involved taking portraits of citizens living in Saitama City and exhibiting them.
Within such a project, we also wanted to feature pictures of local families taken by themselves. If those photos were taken through the eyes of children, we might get to see something raw, deeply intimate. We were hoping to see portraits never before seen. We decided to commission some fourth graders at an elementary school in Saitama City.
We visited the elementary school and delivered a lecture on portrait photography. After the 40-minute lecture, it was time for the one-on-one interviews. During these conversations, we guided each student to break down the concept of "family" and focus on specific family members. We asked questions like, "Who do you talk to the most in your family?" or "Who do you like the most?", "What do you enjoy doing with that person?" and "What do you like to see them doing?" Through these questions, the students reflected on their daily lives and visualised each family member in their minds.
Hey, Naruse-san! Good to see you earlier! How was the questionnaire? Was it easy? Let’s see... What pets do you have?
Hamsters, lizards, frogs, newts...
That’s a lot of pets! Does everyone in your family like animals?
My older brother really likes reptiles.
That’s perfect! I think we’ve found something original. Looks like we’ve figured it out already! Is it okay if I decide?
The newt?
Yeah! The newt and your brother!
For ‘Who do you play with the most?’, you wrote that you play with your little sister a lot. What do you play with her? Video games?
Well, we play things like chanbara (sword fighting).
S: Chanbara? Like, with toy swords where you pretend to slash each other? Doesn’t that hurt?
We use the soft ones, like the toy ones.
Oh, the squishy sponge ones, right? I have a little brother, but I don’t have a little sister, so I’m a bit jealous that you get to play sword fight with your sister. You left the part about ‘Photos only I can take’ blank, but maybe the photo only you can take is of you and your sister playing together. If it’s a photo of you two playing chanbara, it could be a really special picture!
I just don’t know how to take that kind of picture.
How should we take it? Did you look at all the pictures on this sheet? Which one did you like?
I liked this cool one.
That’s a really dynamic one. So imagine the person in the photo is your sister, and she’s holding a sword. What kind of picture comes to mind?
Maybe she’s swinging the sword up, looking like she’s having fun.
When we asked these questions, it seemed as if they were reminiscing about their daily lives and imagining each member of their family in their minds, looking at them anew.
Many of the students gave honest answers, such as "I like playing with toys with my sister after dinner", "I like to see my mom cooking in the kitchen", and "I like seeing my dad working hard", and when we looked at the photos they took, they were very honest portraits.
PHOTOGRAPHY by Elementary School students CREATIVE DIRECTION & INTERVIEW by Takuhito Kawashima Included in the book "We" published by Partners Studio
I was worried about asking these fourth graders to "take a family photo during summer vacation". If I think from their perspective, I could imagine them taking typical vacation snapshots, like the kind you might see in a photo album. I worried that all the photos would end up looking similar, so I decided to talk with the kids. I also requested to have one-on-one conversations with each of them, even if it was only for three minutes. Thankfully, the school approved this plan.
It was mid-July when I visited Saitama University Elementary School. The students were buzzing with excitement just before summer vacation started, as I stood before them to deliver a lecture on portrait photography. Instead of history or technical details, I focused on a crucial aspect of photography that photographers naturally incorporated into their shoots: asking for permission to take a photo. I stressed the importance of shared awareness and time (shooting time) between the photographer and the subject. I believe that this shared awareness is vital, even when photographing someone as familiar as your mother or younger sister. I persistently emphasized the importance of asking, “Can I take your photo?” before pointing the camera at the subject. The students were not given special cameras, just their usual smartphones or the tablets provided by the school, which had cameras. I wanted them to capture their family members as naturally as possible.