Not So Soon: A Photography Project Based on Autoethnographic Research on My Dying Mother

Abstract

This research is concerned with the denial of death in society, and it is informed by my position as a Japanese-Australian photographer. The research project Not So Soon (2014–2018) consists of a series of photographic and video pieces compiled from photographs and interviews with my terminally ill Mother, Masako Katayama, as well as this exegesis. This research reflects upon my readings of death and dying in direct relation to my Mother, and investigates how a terminally ill mother and her daughter can comprehend the mother’s impending death. In collaboration with my Mother as the principal subject, I consider how the process of dying can be presented to a public who often withdraw from discussion on this topic. Photography can serve, refine, and expand the work of qualitative research; however, only a few have successfully combined research texts with academic rigour and strong visual semiotics rather than utilising photography as a supportive/illustrative tool. The final outcomes of the research contribute to this gap in the field, offering new ways of perceiving death and dying in modern day, multicultural Australia. Death and dying are considered taboo subjects in many countries, including Australia and Japan. The denial of death in society persists although the stigma has diminished over the years. Contemporary Japanese perspectives of death are similar to those in the West, but some unique attributes can be found in Japanese visual art, such as Mika Ninagawa's photography book The Days Were Beautiful (2017). The metaphysical function of photography has been closely related to death; therefore, I understand photography as an ideal medium through which to portray it. I examine the work of some visual practitioners in the field, such as Mami Sunada, Walter Schels and Beate Lakotta, Sophie Calle, Briony Campbell, Phillip Toledano and William Yang, to support the numerous ways in which photographers have approached the topic of death. Employing an insider approach, portraits and video interviews explore my Mother’s position as a terminally ill patient. In 2014, my Mother was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer. She had her ovaries removed and started chemotherapy soon after. A few months after the surgery, I began to focus on my Mother’s perception of death and dying, utilising questions from two fear-of-death scales. These death scales were read in conjunction with studies on death and dying, in order to highlight how these discourses might be translated into creative practices that seek to understand the profound and difficult task of facing death. These perspectives influenced the exchange between my Mother and me, and are seen in the video piece entitled Not So Soon (2015). Through my research, I learnt that my Mother accepts her fate, but still harbours great fear of the possible pain and suffering she may experience as her illness progresses. The outcomes are presented through photography and video images as extended forms of still photography. Throughout the course of this doctoral research, I conducted a diary exchange project with my Mother, and some extracts of these entries were displayed in both English and Japanese alongside photographic works in a solo exhibition held in Sydney. The process of assembling works for the exhibition clarified what I truly wanted to express through the project: that receiving a cancer sentence is cruel, but my Mother and I have been granted one last chance to cherish our remaining time together. In this exegesis, I analyse our previous mother–daughter relationship as well as how it has changed in recent years. Drawing on the field of autoethnography, I developed a visual methodology using still and moving images to foreground ways in which my Mother and I can comprehend and express our relationship to one another, as well as to death and dying. At the same time, the practical outcomes of this research aim to expand empathic modes of understanding death in those who will inevitably come to know its impact upon their lives.