The title of French-born photographer Charles Fréger’s newest series is a neologism: he christened it Yokainoshima, or “island of monsters.” With the help of a local assistant, Fréger journeyed through Japan’s rural areas, making five trips between 2013 and 2015, to snap images of ritualistic garments. These outfits — from straw skirts to bright kimonos — are worn for ceremonies intended either to conjure fertile harvests or banish evil spirits. Having wrapped his previous series, Wilder Mann (2010-2011), which examined the mythic harvest traditions of Europe, Fréger sought to explore similar rites throughout the world. And he found them alive and well in Japan.
Fréger specializes in community-focused portraiture, usually centered on folkloric traditions. He’s captured the ebullient plumage of Mardi Gras Indians and the assorted maritime uniforms of professionals in the Outremer, France’s territories overseas. His interest in the sartorial has also led him to work with various designers — including an especially fitting pairing with the Indian designer Manish Arora, who shares his love of unusual textiles and silhouettes.
We spoke with Fréger about his farm-boy roots, his interest in fabrics, and why he’s no anthropologist.
What’s your background, and how did you become interested in photography?
I come from a rural environment; my father was a farmer and I did agricultural studies before going to the École des Beaux Arts in Rouen at age 20. At school I started with painting, but quickly bifurcated into portrait photography, and right away focused on communities. I like the idea of seriality. My recent series Wilder Mann and Yokainoshima reconnected me with rural roots.
Uniforms and ritualistic costumes are recurrent in your work. Were you exposed to any in France?
I’m not from an area where there were a lot of rituals; the region is called le Berry. It doesn’t have a tradition of masquerade, but it does have a tradition of witchcraft, which existed until the 1940s or 1950s and has since disappeared. There were also beliefs about healers, specifically female healers, and those still exist in the region. We called them sorceresses.
Witchcraft is a very gendered kind of folklore. In Yokainoshima too, the traditions seem very gendered, specifically masculine. How inclusive are the rituals, ultimately?
In Europe and in Japan, it’s kind of the same phenomenon: most traditions of masquerade, of this kind, are male. I think there’s a connection between agricultural fertility and masculinity. There are festivals on the island of Sado in Japan, or in the south in Kagoshima, where the men’s costumes have monstrously gigantic genitals that are supposed to bring fertility, for rice especially. I mostly photographed rituals enacted by men.
Given your focus on garments and silhouettes, what’s your relationship to fashion photography?
I’ve done some fashion photography, and [my work] still touches on the sculptural: I associate models with materials. For my fashion shoots, the poses are very similar to those in Wilder Mann and Yokainoshima. They’re not typical model poses; they’re more evocative of dances or celebrations, things that can resemble raptures or trances.
What is your relationship to your subjects? Do you have specific poses in mind ahead of time?
There’s always a context. You can’t anticipate the totality of the parameters of a shot. You adapt to the situation, to the weather, to the reactivity of subjects, to the costume. There are random elements — for fashion photography, too. I don’t know if you’d call it improvisation, but you adapt. I have a photographic protocol with lighting, and my way of framing, and my relationship with the people I’m photographing: all of which is pretty strict. I reproduce a way of photographing that is quite of a kind. There is always the idea of creating harmony or a connection between the model and the environment. The choice of venue for a shoot is fundamental, and it’s rarely a studio. It’s always a venue that is lived-in, that has a particular essence, whether it’s a landscape or a closed space.
Do you feel that there’s an anthropological element to your work? Does the serial nature of your photographs create a kind of typology?
It’s an artistic seriality. I start from the idea that I will not do typological or anthropological work; the series is exhaustive only relative to my visual conception of what I want to photograph. When there are groups, I don’t necessarily photograph everyone, because not everyone corresponds to what I want. I’m not scientific; I’m not seeking neutrality. Nor am I seeking prolonged contact with my subjects. I don’t even see the ritual live. It’s staged, rather than during the ritual itself. I integrate the subjects into my photographic vision.
Credits
Text Sarah Moroz
Photography Charles Fréger