Ishiuchi Miyako’s Mother’s (2002-2005) and the Aesthetics of Matrixial Encounter

Ishiuchi’s series Mother's (2000-2005), photographs of her mother’s ageing body just before she died and of the personal belongings she left behind, brought her increased international attention. Most of her works, monumental in size, with frontal viewpoints and symmetrical compositions, inquire into the passing of time, traces of lives, and what is left behind. Most critics identify the themes of mourning and remembrance, loss and absence in Ishiuchi’s works, considering her medium as an agent of memory that fetishizes her subject matter. In this paper, I visually analyze Ishiuchi’s works from a different perspective. I argue that the artist uses photography as a medium not only for expressing Japan’s memory and mourning but also for articulating the trans-subjective relationship. Ishiuchi’s photographs are deeply personal and yet hold a universal meaning. The Matrixial theory developed by artist-theorist Bracha Ettinger offers some interpretative possibilities for Ishiuchi’s works. I aim to develop a matrixial reading for Ishiuchi’s photographs in Mother’s series. Ettinger defines the matrixial as the experience of “subjectivity-as-encounter.” Through her artworks, Ishiuchi creates matrixial alliances to bring herself closer to the possibility of recognizing and being affected by the pain and trauma of her late mother, of postwar Japanese women, and of the Other—other people, other times, other histories.