Stakeout

The work was inspired by an experience in which she accompanied an old friend on a stakeout in an unfamiliar town. As they were stationed in their vehicle and projecting a one-sided gaze at their subjects, Yamamoto experienced guilt. This internal tension also made her feel as if they were being watched themselves. The episode compelled Yamamoto to construct an installation that presents both a car window, which has the potential to function as a one-way mirror, and an unspecified subject that exists past the boundaries of the observer’s gaze.

Beyond the unusual experience of surveilling strangers, the work was also shaped by the emotional profundity of the situation, as well as the artist's positionality as a companion rather than a direct participant. Yamamoto notes that the sensation she experienced during the stakeout lingered within her long afterward.

A stakeout could be an act of waiting for the perfect moment to capture a photograph. Yamamoto reinterprets this act as a new point of contact with a unique and overwhelming personal experience.

2025

Dedicated to the SEYANA group.

Stakeout (Book)Purchasable atDaikanyama Tsutaya @daikanyamatsutaya_art
flotsam books @flotsambooks

Book Design and Art Direction: Kei Sakawaki

Text: Arata Hasegawa

Translation to English: Hanna Hirakawa
, Benjamin Korman

Court Note

One day, while browsing the court's website I found a page called “Tokyo High Court Photo Gallery,”.
Although there was only a picture of a chandelier inside the courthouse, and not a single other picture was posted there. Since photography is prohibited at the courthouse grounds, they may have tried to publish official photos. On the other hand, the large blank space of the page seemed meaningful to me, so I tried to fill that blank space with my drawing notes to complete the "photo gallery".

2025

House of Sunlight

This work was inspired by the theme of the exhibition “Eternalpole Yamabiko” to be held at copycenter gallery (Itabashi, Tokyo) in 2025. Based on the meaning of “Eternalpole,” which means guidepost, according to the organizer. I was looking for something that could serve as an indicator from various points based on that theme of the exhibit. And I found this lighthouse, a kilometer from the coast, surrounded by houses and fields. Then I walked around it, moving closer and bit away, taking pictures of the lighthouse from various points as they seem different. Things I newly tried is that I made this work within 30 minutes of shooting, just a half day of book assembling, not spending a long time to attentively assemble.

2025

Glow

Highways and traffic jams are places where the flow of objects becomes visible as movements of light. Each time I travel by car, taxi, or bus, I attempt to capture the shifting glow seen from within the swaying interior. Yet, the more I try to create a single, coherent image from something always in flux, the further I move away from the actual experience. For me, perception encompasses not only vision but also physical, collective memories—such as the color temperature of the light touching my face and the sensation of the heater inside the vehicle—as well as the feeling of time stretching. Drawing on this collective memory, I rework multiple photographs into objects that more closely reflect myr own perception.

2021/2024

Plasticity

Once I put things on table roughly, sometimes it looks like it’s set for shooting. Often the sences come from when I am tyding up. In this series of work, I transform composition from daily movements into a staged photo, and I shot it like well-planned shooting.

2024

M.S,S, / Military Slang Sayings

Yokosuka, where I have been conducting a field survey for a year and a half - a land where many Americans reside in Japan because of the U.S. military base, although I have never had the opportunity to naturally engage with US military personnel in the past. Relying on a "teach/be taught" structure may be the quickest way to get involved with Marine people? That assumption led a way to make this video work "M.S.S.", which shows a person when studying the slang used on a U.S. military base (=military slang sayings) by herself, in preparation for the day when he/she will be involved with U.S. military people.

Without knowing whether there is a chance to actually use those slangs in conversation. The aim of the video work is taking back to my hands an ability for being optimistic in self-taught language studying, in the society of Japan that learning English is a kind of way to be privilege. In between the act of studying a language that one does not know when one will use it, and the act of learning a language that, even if learned, seems to be useless(but being fullfilled with hope).

2023

Support:Sense Island 2023

Macht

I had the opportunity to create something about “something like an energy body that has no physical form,” and I created a method to understand it in a more personal way.
First, since I am a German learner, I looked up the words in German, related words of “energy”. Then, I created example sentences based on the meaning of each word. Making example sentences is a common technique in language learning, but I used these example sentences as “prompts” to compose an image from the words. Coffee was used as a motif because of its caffeine content in this work.

2024

Support: ACAC The Aomori Contemporary Art Centre

Field_B

Consisting of text and photographs, Field_B is a project that reflects the overwritten land by connecting a residential area in Chiba, the artist's hometown, to a Athletic field in Okinawa through fieldwork.

This work deals with military lands that exist throughout Japan. One circular radio transmitting station that once existed in Chiba Prefecture is now home to a park, apartments, a pharmacy, and a school. On the other hand, research on military lands resulted in to Athletic fields in faraway Okinawa. There, I learned that one of the means of restoring U.S. military lands to the hands of citizens was the proposed construction of baseball fields and athletic parks on U.S. military lands as “common-use"" or ""sharing"" areas. Numerous playgrounds still exist today.

The role of the land is renewed as new facilities are built. But is this synonymous with the renewal of a place? This project shows the land has been presenting in a different form.

2023

Translation Jp to Kr: Yuki Konno

Book Design: Eunji Lee

Special Thanks: Hiro Nakazato

Pioneer

I can see more than just human activity in the irrigation systems in the restricted environments, and the plants existing in a very artificial way. In the irrigation systems introduced to cultivate plants that grow in restricted environments, and in the plants near living environments that are existing in a very artificial way, we can see more than just human activity in growing plants for their hobby. The plants there seemingly subservient to man, are indeed rather subordinated man before their desires. In Pioneer, I photographed plants and artificial matters should be contained in the same frame, and aim to express that they are living in the same world.

2020/2021

Support:ANB Tokyo

photo:Taisuke Koyama

Fly Ahead

In Japan, the height of buildings surrounding the Imperial Palace is regulated to prevent them from overshadowing the Palace. In Fly Ahead, I created an installation featuring an image of an airplane seemingly flying just above the ground near the Palace's perimeter—an event that never occurred in reality—embedded into an advertisement panel. The notion that 'airplanes can't fly over the Imperial Palace' is a fabricated story I encountered in a university reading group. Given that central Tokyo is in close proximity to a large international airport, I began to consider that this event could be plausible. However, by that point, this believable fabrication had already become a reality in my mind, prompting the creation of this work. I exhibited this piece using window panels that originally held actual advertising images.

2022
photo: TOKYO PHOTOGRAPHIC RESEARCH