RECRUIT
Tomoko Sawada

In Recruit, Tomoko Sawada continues her work on the auto portrait, venturing to the heart of contemporary Japanese society. This time, she focuses on the formal photos taken by Japanese students after graduation, when they begin searching for work. She retains the well-established formal conventions of dress, posture, and neutral facial expressions with only subtle variation. Basing off a fixed photographic method, which imitates the lighting and fixed poses of the photo booth, she multiplies the images, intervening only by changing her hairdo, makeup and facial expressions. She surprises the audience with the diversity and variety she renders possible in one face, revealing the relative character of appearance on a larger scale. The three contact sheets of portraits are arranged in a grid formation on the pages of the book, providing a global vision of the number of photographs while simultaneously inviting our gaze to venture from each individual face to the next.