Ma 間

This body of work is my personal visual haiku (俳句) to invite viewers to pause and perceive moments of beauty that are impermanent and imperfect.

Image Credit: Estelle Yoon

My photographic practice offers a queer lens to explore Ma 間, the Japanese concept of negative space, and how the body can interrupt it. In a society where anything ‘negative’ is unwelcomed, the negative space of my photographs welcomes an emptiness full of possibilities for the subject — like the silence between notes in music. 

Materiality acts as an important part in my practice as textural values and movement are added to the images itself through the developing process. If my photographic images explore the concept of ma (間), the materiality of my images encapsulates the concept of wabi-sabi (侘寂), which is centred around notions of transience and imperfection. Hence, this body of work is my personal visual haiku (俳句) to invite viewers to pause and perceive moments of beauty that are impermanent and imperfect.

I hope that my visual haiku dares one to daydream, to pause, and to be taken by the negative space into a realm of their own possibilities and imagination.

Photographer : Estelle Yoon
Model : Sian Kelly