Etsuko Kato

I am Japanese.  I got a fresh reminder of it, “I am Japanese”.  Who is Etsuko Kato.  Lived in Japan, I never care and think about it, but it was important thing next to my name in the United States. After over 10 years living in the United States, people in Japan told me that I am not Japanese anymore, and people in the United States told me I am Japanese.  I am asking myself, who am I?

Photographs captures this physical world and also captures world which “I” am living in. By taking photographs I confirm the fact that I am alive.  Using camera as my third eye, lens as my filter, though those tools show and teach me so many things.  The moment camera captures, what I thought,

what and how I felt and what my criterions are.  Those aggregations give me some hints little by little for my question “Who am I?”

Taking photograph for me, it is conversation with myself.  Sometimes I try to have some conversation with others using paper as medium.  As a Japanese person, as Etsuko Kato, and as a human. Many questions arising out of those conversations, “What is Japanese”, “Japanese and I” and “Who am I”.