TOKYO-2017 People / Self-Portrait

Merry Christmas

  • Prize
    Bronze in People/Self-Portrait
  • Photographer
    Seongjae Kim

I made this double exposure and self-portrait photography as a tribute to a Swiss writer Robert Walser, who led the life of a recluse. I believe that there is an analogy between Walser’s novels and making of self-portrait photography. It is ludicrous and lonely to do self-portrait photography disguising others as it is a solitary work. Similarly, humor and loneliness coexist in Walser’s novels telling his stories through fictional characters. In many Walser’s novels, he described men who died in the snow, and the deaths are not tragedies, but the emotional moments of peaceful rests. On Christmas Day, 1956, a group of children in Hersisau found Walser’s body in a snowy field. Like his characters, Walser was also frozen to death in snowy day, and like he depicted in his novels, his death was perhaps the last moment of the lone artist’s journey.