Boundless is a photographic project that explores the boundaries of beauty understood in absolute terms.
The subjects are generously built women, photographed creating minimalist sculptural shapes by using bonding with hemp ropes according to the ancient Japanese art of Shibari.
All the photographs are isolated from any space-time context, with the specific aim of underlining the abstract shape of the body modelled and sculptured by the lights, with the generous shapes enhanced by the pressure exerted by the hemp ropes, and emphasised by the light and shadow effects these produce.
Boundless
Any judgement on the aesthetic evaluation of the extreme abundance of the shapes is suspended, as if there were no dominant aesthetic standard tending towards slender and tapered forms or identifying beauty with thinness, but an absolute and primordial female dimension, an archetype of a fertile woman that comes from the depth of the genetic inheritance of humanity ever since the most remote times, as witnessed by the Palaeolithic Venuses, with its highest expression in the shapes of the Venus of Willendorf.
These unusual proportions are thus isolated from any ethical or social context, freed from moral and aesthetic judgements, and they express their values for what they are: plastic shapes, sometimes expressed at the limit of abstraction, other times maintaining their anthropomorphic connotation, but never providing a carnal or erotic interpretation, and without any form of morbidity or moralistic intent.
The bodies are not depicted to underline their qualities or defects, but to communicate an absolute aesthetic sense of the harmony of their shapes, free from any form of personal estimation or interpretation, paradoxically creating a new aesthetic standard with an added value.
The shapes can recall the opulence of Fernando Botero, but in contrast with the works of the Columbian painter, where proportions are evidently taken to extremes and shadows are nearly non existent, the extreme abundance in the photographs does not have the connotations of intentional excess and the shadows have a fundamental role: they delimit and shape the figure, that is never dilated as in Botero’s works, but always well defined.
The abundance of the forms produces a contrast with the extreme conciseness of the Haiku, the short classic Japanese poems chosen to accompany each subject.
Another peculiarity of this project is that the photographer himself studied and did the bonding on the models, producing a unique work of art in this genre, at first creating a living sculpture and then photographing it with absolute rigour. There is no provocative intent, the bonding is a means for obtaining the shape, not the subject of the photograph. The photograph’s abstraction sometimes causes the model to be not the subject of the photograph itself, but only a medium.
Bondage experts generally seek the help of professional photographers in their work, as in the case of Midori, who got the photographer Craig Morey to take care of the photography in the book “The seductive art of Japanese Bondage”, which was certainly a source of inspiration for the study of some of the bonding carried out in Boundless.
It is very rare and difficult to combine expertise in both bondage and photography in a single person.
The main difference between this project and other artistic productions in the bondage field, is that the bonding in Boundless has an exclusively decorative and aesthetic value, with the intentional exclusion of any reference to the universe of fetish, of domination, and also of fashion, that are dominant in other artistic productions.
Since the apparition of the bondage-photography combination, the link to the world of fetish and domination has always been strongly present. The acclaimed father of this photographic genre is Irwing Klaw, who in the Forties, together with his sister and the model Betty Page, started producing photographic material destined to remain in the history of fetish photography.
In all bondage-related photographic productions, starting from Klaw onwards and right up to the present day, there are common features, for example the choice of Japanese, or anyway very minute models. This not only to respect the common aesthetic taste, and as a homage to the origins of the art of bondage, but also for merely practical reasons.
Certain standards can only be respected thanks to the standardisation of the models, so bonding that requires suspensions or semi-suspensions are much less complicated if minute and lightweight bodies are used.
The use of models completely outside the classic physical standards caused great difficulties in each bonding step, from the drawing board to the actual realization.
Despite all the objective difficulties that the models had to patiently undergo, there is a total absence of that suffering expression typically found in the work of other photographers, for example Nobuyoshi Araki.
The models in Boundless have an expression of serene contemplation, the same contemplation that is expressed by the Haiku that accompany each photograph.
Even the work of Namio Harukawa, a Japanese illustrator who exasperates the abundance of female shapes to emphasise their superiority in respect to men that are frail and subdued, has a completely different taste and meaning.
n Harukawa’s drawings the bonding is there only to immobilize and subdue the male figures, the female abundance is only a pretext for a visual and objective superiority, as well as a conceptual one.
All the elements in his illustrations rotate around woman’s domination and her physical and spiritual superiority.
It is the absence of any reference to domination and sufferance, the absence of carnality and eroticism, the suspension of any form of moral and aesthetic judgement, the great emphasis and meditative respect (of a nearly religious nature) with which the images of Boundless have been created, that make this project absolutely
Haiku
Every release is accompanied by a Haiku, which helps to emphasize the contemplative and meditative aspect of the work.
Haiku (or Hokku) is the shortest literature form in the world. It is a short poem with 17 syllables or with 3 lines and a natural rhythmic structure of 5, 7, 5 syllables, the dimensions of a breath.
Haiku is both a type of poetic pattern and a way of experiencing the world. It focuses our attention on a single, insightful moment. Closely tied to the Japanese aesthetic of Yugen (beauty that suggests mystery, depth and a tinge of sadness) and the spirituality of Buddhism, Haiku looks deceptively simple, while it suggests something deeper, often evoking the mysterious, transitory nature of all existence.
Three great masters of Haiku, Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson and Kobayashi Issa, lived during Japan’s Edo period (1600-1868) and their work still exerts a great deal of influence on how Haiku is written today. Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) appeared in the Haiku world as the critic to Basho. The Haiku innovation by Shiki created a great sensation in the whole of Japan and revived the languishing Haiku world.
Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694)
From time to time
The clouds give rest
To the moon beholders
Kumo oriori
Hito o yasumuru
Tsukimi kana
All the more I wish to see
Among those blossoms at dawn
The face of the god
Nao mitashi
Hana ni akeyuku
Kami no kao
I am not yet dead
After many nights on the road –
End of an autumn day
shini mo senu
tabine no hate yo
aki no kure
Drizzly June –
Long hair, face
Sickly white
kami haete
igan aoshi
satsuki ame
The first snow –
Daffodil leaves bend
Under the weight
Hatsuyuki ya
Suisen no ha no
Tawamu made
The moon and snow –
I live watching the beauties.
The year-end
Tsuki yuki to
Nosabari kerashi
Toshi no kure
When you lit the candle
It was like the lightning
In the dark
Inazuma wo
Te ni toru yami no
Shisoku kana
The summer grasses –
For many brave warriors
The aftermath of dreams
natsukusa ya
tsuwamono domo ga
yume no ato
As they begin to rise again
Chrysanthemums faintly smell,
After the flooding rain
Okiagaru
Kiku honoka nari
Mizu no ato
The withered flowers
Drop their seeds
Like tears
Hana mina karete
Aware wo kobosu
kusa no tane
A butterfly flies
Alone amid the fields:
Shadows in the sunlight
Chô no tobu
Bakari nonaka no
Hikage kana
Is that brightness moonlight?
Hands on knees in meditation,
At home early in the evening
Tsuki shiro ya
Hiza ni te wo oku
Yoi no yado
Autumn eve –
Please turn to me,
I am lonely too
Kochira muke
Ware mo sabishiki
Aki no kure
How admirable
He who thinks not “Life is fleeting”
When he sees the lightning!
Inazuma ni
Satoranu hito no
Toutosa yo
The spring night
Has come to an end,
With dawn on the cherry blossoms
Haru no yo wa
Sakura ni akete
Shimahi keri
Bent down by the weight
The world seems back-to-front
Snow heavy on the bamboo grove
Shiorefusu ya
Yo wa sakasama no
Yuki no take
Spring morning marvel:
Lovely nameless little hill
On a sea of mist
Haru nare ya
Na mo naki yama no
Usu gasumi
A garden in winter:
A thin thread of moon above
A single insect’s lonely cry
Fuyu-niwa ya
Tsuki mo ito naru
Mushi no gin
Awe inspiring!
On the green budding leaves
Light of the sun
Ara tôto
Aoba wakaba no
Hi no hikari
The narrow tongue of flame,
The oil in the lamp is frozen;
It is so sad to wake up!
Abura kôri
Tomoshi-bi hosoki
Nezame kana
Yosa Buson (1716 – 1783)
A flash of lightening –
The sound of drops
Falling among the bamboos
Inazuma ni
koboruru oto ya
take no tsuyu
A bamboo moon
Is caressing the round
Of early snow
Hatsu yuki no
Soko wo tatakeba
Take no tsuki
An autumn eve
There is joy too
In loneliness
sabishisa no
ureshiku mo ari
aki no kure
Masaoka Shiki (1867 – 1902)
Loneliness:
After the fireworks
Stars’ shooting
Sabishisa ya
Hanabi no ato no
Hoshi no tobu
How much longer
Is my life?
A brief night
Yomei
Ikubaku ka aru
Yo mijikashi
Kobayashi Issa (1723 – 1827)
In this world
We walk on the roof of hell
Gazing at flowers
Yo no naka wa
Jigoku no ue ni
Hanami kana