Two notes about the childhood of the artist, singer and rising star Mari Katayama (Saitama, Japan, 36 years old): one, she sewed at home.
“Both my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother worked in sewing.
I inherited the technique from all of them.
Before picking up a pencil, I was handling a needle and thread,” she explains, shy and accurate, in the room of La Casa Encendida where, starting today, February 1,
her
photographic work and tactile: works of baroque force and dark, almost punk humor, with flashes of contemporary masters such as Cindy Sherman or Jeff Wall, in which she is the protagonist.
“I am not as skilled as them at creating things that are useful in life.
But I never stopped making,” she says, and she points out the intricate fabric creations that she wears in her photos.
“What I do best is working with sewing.
“Needles and threads.”
Second note: Katayama was diagnosed as a child with peroneal hemimelia, a congenital absence of the fibula bone, certain condemnation to a wheelchair.
At nine years old, she preferred to amputate her legs and replace them with prosthetics, today the center of much of her work.
So much so that, judging by the paragraphs and paragraphs dedicated in interviews to this specific event, this journalist is preparing to hear and put together an exemplary story of personal improvement and how adversity can become personal and artistic discourse.
This journalist is about to learn a valuable lesson about the risks of going into an interview with too many certainties.
Ask.
At nine years old she had to decide what the rest of her life would be like.
Answer.
I had to decide if she was still with my legs.
If she did it then she wouldn't be able to walk.
Until then I had used a kind of boot that rectified my position, but that no longer worked.
It was either cutting off the legs and using a prosthesis or the wheelchair.
I opted for a prosthesis.
The decision making was quite natural.
I also had the influence of my mother in that.
Q.
How do you navigate the decision to lose a leg at nine years old?
A.
The word
cut
can mean
lose.
That you are going to abandon something.
I have conceived it the opposite.
I gained a way of walking, of living.
It wasn't losing.
It was winning.
Q.
Not only does he not hide that physical difference, he shows it in his own work.
Was it difficult for you to get there?
A.
It is something social, in Japan and in the world: a person who is missing a member of the body, or who has some inconvenience in life, is called a “person with a disability
.
”
I never felt disabled.
I thought I was just like the others.
As a child I lived in a city where 20% of the population was immigrants.
There were different languages and appearances and my difference made me one more.
In fact, I found it boring to use my body as a subject in my art.
When I was young I thought that art should have some funny, important, novel theme.
And my body was too boring for that.
Q.
But that body is the center of your work.
A.
Works created with needle and thread are easier to present if you wear them.
My body is a mannequin to present my work.
Q.
Have the rest of us given the name of the creator with a prosthesis?
A.
The work in the background [points to a full-length self-portrait] is from seven years ago.
And the ones over there [points to others where she appears completely covered by a blanket of silver scales] are from two years ago.
Between one period and another I realized that there were people who called my art as outsider
,
as disabled.
There I was aware that yes, they consider me disabled.
That, in addition to your own being, there are many names, many coats, that people outside of you give you: that I am disabled, that I am a woman, that I am a mother...
Q.
Shouldn't your prostheses and stumps be understood as your message?
A.
I really don't have that fighting conscience of breaking stereotypes or the habit of hiding body differences.
I do not consider that self that appears in the work to be me.
The Japanese artist Mari Katayama, in the exhibition 'Loving the Alien', at the Casa Encendida, in Madrid.Jaime Villanueva
Q.
Does the face in his photos and yours not match?
A.
I have a
self
that goes out more to the public and I maintain the artist self, in my workshop, doing my sewing.
I go from one space to another all the time.
It's the way of life I have.
My mother is not very interested in what I do.
She almost never comes to my exhibitions and, when she does, she says to me: “Are you still doing this?”
Q.
In today's culture the exemplary is exploited.
Many artists present their traumas, their lives, as something to learn from.
Not interested in telling your story?
A.
Contemporary art is based on the life you lead.
It is contemporary: the work comes out while you are alive.
But while I create the work, the work is also creating me.
It doesn't make sense to put so much emphasis on my personal story.
The Japanese artist Mari Katayama, in the exhibition 'Loving the Alien', at the Casa Encendida, in Madrid.Jaime Villanueva
Q.
Do you talk so much about your disability because they bring it up?
What is the most frequent question that journalists ask you?
A.
Very detailed questions about my childhood and my disability.
My life before the works.
Sometimes I ask them back: “And what was your childhood like?”
Because it has nothing to do with the interview.
Q.
And that tires you?
A.
I don't know if it's very appropriate to say it, but I don't have much interest in my disability.
[Pause] Also, since there are analog photographs in which I appear, they ask me how I take myself out.
I use a cable, by the way.
I can't run to get in front of the target.
I do not have legs.
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