No One’s but My Photographs of Fifteen Years ― Ai Ezaki Archive of affection, obsession

More than ten years ago, in the flyer rack of a gallery, a photograph of a half-blinking woman in a flamboyant jacket caught my eye. Without even checking the information column, I slipped it into my bag and took it home.

It was before the Hokuriku Shinkansen had even opened. As a young man born and raised in Kanazawa, Tokyo―with its skyline of high-rise buildings and condominiums and its constant presence on the pages of magazines and on television―still felt like another world.

That snapshot on the flyer radiated a strange allure: a daily scene from a place with which I had no ties whatsoever, at once real and yet curiously unreal.

This photo was used in the direct mail at the time.

Later, I moved to London to study at the language school, but I was studying photography when I realised it. I gradually began to know Japanese photographers upon my return. Without realising that she was the author of the photograph on that flyer, I eventually got to know Ai Ezaki as well.

She has maintained a deep connection to Tokyo's street culture scene for a long time, consistently producing zines and having exhibitions and other artist books. That stance seems unchanged from then to now. Yet recently, she appears to be exploring what it means to be an artist by expanding the range of her activities and forms of expression.

Her latest work, "Archive of affection, obsession", is a culmination that brings together works from the start of her career in 2010 up to 2025.

Archive of affection, obsession (self-published, 2025)

The book design was handled by graphic designer Yuta Murao, based in Tokyo, a member of the design studio/brand “Well” and the small publishing house “SAMY PRESS”. Recently, Murao has emerged as a leading figure of the next generation of book designers, steadily gaining a following among IACK’s readership as well.

The cardboard cover is wrapped in two dust jackets of different sizes (one affixed to the body of the book), with red foil stamping that shimmers. It is a design characteristic of Murao―playfully inventive, yet clean and elegant.

Inside are portraits of Ezaki’s friends and acquaintances, along with snapshots laid out in varied compositions.

All the subjects are young and can be seen in various locations, including homes, streets, parks, and other settings. Interspersed are Ezaki’s self-portraits, staged photographs seemingly shot for editorial work, as well as images of landscapes and food devoid of people.

Inserted throughout are texts printed in red, recounting episodes from meeting a certain woman to the process of photographing her and reflecting on the making of the book. These writings reveal Ezaki’s unique character, her obsessions, her curiosity about others, and the dilemmas stemming from her genuineness.

Murao completed 90% of the book's design, layout, and selection of photographs, as described in the later texts.

Some may argue that if the photographer doesn't choose the images themselves, the work loses its artistic integrity. Certainly, such an approach diverges from the way of thinking that spread after the 2010s―that a photobook should be almost fully realised in the form of a dummy.

Yet if we look back at history, some of the most celebrated masterpieces of the medium came into being precisely because editing or design was entrusted entirely to another. It is difficult to declare which is right, but perhaps that very absence of a “correct answer” is what makes the making of a book so profound.

Through the act of making a book together with another, Ezaki sought to see her outline from an objective distance. This can be seen as her new challenge after widening her activities recently but also as a response to the dilemmas inherent in independent practice.

Independence offers freedom, yet sometimes ahead of it lurk the dangers of stagnation, a fixed audience, and narrowing vision. For Ezaki, who has worked in an unchanging style for many years, incorporating another’s perspective may have been a pragmatic way to break through while still holding her stance.

It is difficult for me to write about this book while entirely excluding personal feelings. For I lived through this era, from my twenties into my thirties, and most of the people who appear in the book are ones I have met at least once.

It may sound clichéd, but no word seems more fitting to describe this book than “springtime of life”. It traces over a decade in the life of a community in Tokyo. The red text running throughout infuses the images with blood, making them feel not like records of the past but as if they are still alive in the present. The limited edition of only 150 copies further suggests that this book was made to be sent to those with whom specific faces come to mind.

The Tokyo of the 2010s, along with those days, has already passed. Through Murao’s perspective, this book allows us to confront that fact and bid it a quiet farewell, carrying a wistful yet refreshing aftertaste. And Ezaki, in choosing to accept that fact objectively, seems to have resolved to move forward.

But more than anything, what comes across through this book is the force that pushes aside sentimentality―the overwhelming presence of the author, "I." Confronting that intense subjectivity head-on, one begins to sense that the term “shi-shashin” (私写真) conceals within it a profound significance at the root of artistic expression, one not often acknowledged until now.

Shi-shashin not translated as personal photography, nor intimate photography, nor fictionalised autobiographical photography, but MY PHOTOGRAPHS.

I would like to end this text here. The perspectives presented will be developed further in a subsequent article.

Article by Yukihito Kono (5 September, 2025)

Title: Archive of affection, obsession
Artist: Ai Ezaki
Design: Yuta Murao
Publisher: Self-published, April 2025
Format: Softcover with dust jacket, PUR binding
Size: 180 × 251 mm
Pages: 160
Language: Japanese/English
Edition: Limited edition of 150 copies
Price: ¥5,500

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