IBASHO/ the (M) éditions, 2024.
Hardcover, 160 pp., 69 illustrations, 219 x 280 mm. Photographs by Chloé Jafé. Text by Élodie Cabrera. Design by Teun Van Der Heijden.
I give you my life is Chloé Jafé's first volume in the Sakasa trilogy.
In 2013, Chloé Jafé moved to Tokyo with the ambition to meet the women of the Yakuza. But no one enters this mafia, one of the most legendary in the world, without being invited. After spending a year perfecting her Japanese, immersing herself in the codes of a culture miles apart from her own, having been a hostess in a bar and combing the city's red light districts, the lock finally broke in. Through a lucky encounter and out of temerity. Inducted by a Boss, she was able to approach these padlocked clans, their official rituals and gatherings, the taboo and tattooed stories that their kimonos camouflage, and through them, their wives, daughters and mistresses.
Women lurking in the shadow of the men to whom they have dedicated their existence, marked on the skin by this dedication which automatically excludes them from society. The “gift of one’s life”, Inochi Azukemasu in Japanese, constitutes the first part of her trilogy.
Born in Lyon in 1984, Chloé Jafé is an artist and a photographer trained at the École de Condé in Lyon and at the UAL Central Saint Martins School in London. She is represented by Akio Nagasawa, Japan. Critically acclaimed, her work on the women of Yakuza was
rewarded by the Bourse du Talent in 2017 and exhibited at the Bibliotèque Nationale de France. Attracted by sensitive and difficult subjects, often marginal, Chloé Jafé does not hesitate in her practice to push the limits of the photographic medium by working directly on prints, in acrylicand brush. Each of her series has resulted in a limited edition book, bound and handcrafted by the artist.
