Skinship

“Skinship” is a Japanese word that describes the skin-to-skin, heart-to-heart relationship between a mother and a child or family. Through an experience of loving touch, a child learns caring for others. Japanese skinship is considered to be important for strengthening the bond of family and also for the child’s healthy development. Because the idea of skinship was perfectly natural to me as Japanese, it was only after I was arrested in New York due to the family snapshots of skinship I had taken did I realize how unique and shocking it could be in other cultural contexts. Living in both Japan and America showed me a clear cultural comparison and paradox. Back in Japan, I gave birth to my son in 2012. There was no boundary between our bodies; a symbiotic union. There was a feeling of oneness. Somehow I started making self-portraits amidst the chaos of everyday life. Photographing my son growing up and enjoying skinship also enabled healing my old wound. Child-rearing is new and nostalgic at the same time. As I parent my child, I re-experience my own childhood, which is both happy and sad. As I see my son grows, I accept my aging and realize it’s not long until I have to say goodbye to my parents. When I was a kid, my late beloved grandmother told me when she saw me cry at the idea of her death that I would be ok because we would go in order. I couldn’t accept it at the time. But now as a mother, I understand what my grandmother told me and the cycle of life and death.