Mari Katayama
Just One of Those Things
2021
Video for High Heel Project
—I don’t want high heels to be something special, but simply a choice, important only to you.
The “High Heels Project” started in 2011 as a project in which Mari Katayama, an artist who lives with an artificial leg, created artificial legs that allow her to wear high heels, walk the streets, and perform on stage. Ten years have passed since the start of the project, and the second phase of the project, which will start in earnest in 2022, will move into the next phase, connecting with various other people and moving toward the “freedom to embrace ideals” for all people. When Katayama was a singer at a jazz bar during her college days, one day a customer made a remark to her, “A woman who doesn’t wear high heels is not a woman. In the course of the first project, which began out of frustration, Katayama was confronted with the current state of social welfare in Japan, where there are very few options provided by “public assistance. Wearing high heels with artificial legs is connected to the issue of people’s “freedom of choice.
Back in 2011, the goal was to get to the point where people could wear high heels by adjusting ready-made parts and shoes and stand on the stage by themselves. In this second project, while developing parts and shoes, the artist had the opportunity to question the freedom of choice, welfare, and the possibility of the body itself, which should be given to all people, through research with experts involved in the project, people with similar disabilities, and researchers related to disabilities and the body.
About Mari Katayama：
Mari Katayama was born 1987 in Saitama, Japan. Graduated with a Master’s degree from the Department of Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2012. As a means of connecting herself with the world and society, Katayama uses a camera, needle and thread, and her own prosthetic legs to create works. Physical experience is the most important thing for her, and she uses various techniques to express her body and relationship with others, both keep changing through these experiences. Her inter- est lies in the (physical) forms and lives of people who try to survive while being trans- formed by the city, society, and systems. In her works, she photographs herself among intricately arranged hand-sewn objects and sculptures. In addition to her creative art, she also leads the “High Heels Project” with a motto of “freedom of choice,” and has worked as fashion model, singer and keynote speaker, wearing custom-made high heels for her prostheses.
Her major exhibitions include, “home again” (Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, 2021), “58th Venice Biennale 2019” (Giardini and Arsenale, Venice),“broken heart” (White Rainbow, London, 2019), “Photographs of Innocence and of Experience – Contemporary Japanese Photography Vol.14” (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, 2017), “Roppongi Crossing – My Body, Your Voice” (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2016), “Aichi Triennale 2013” (Nayabashi, Aichi), etc. Public collections include, Tate Modern (London), Collection Antoine de Galbert (Paris), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo) and Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (Tokyo). She received Higashikawa Award for The New Photographer category in 2019 and Kimura Ihei Award in 2020. Her major publications include “GIFT” (United Vagabonds, 2019).