KAKUREMINO: IN THE DOHYŌ
This photographic series documents a single training session between a senior and junior rikishi inside a Tokyo sumo stable. The photographs move between moments of direct physical and psychological struggle with bodies locked in collision, resistance, and tactical negotiation - interwoven with quieter states of waiting, recalibration, exhaustion, and recovery, revealing how endurance is negotiated through both body and mind.
Inside the sumo stable, wrestlers exist within a rigid system shaped by hierarchy, discipline, and tightly circumscribed gender expectations. The large, powerful body functions as an expression of strength, control, resilience, and self-sufficiency, yet the series questions the assumption that physical power offers protection from psychological vulnerability. Through illuminating the psychological pressure and the weight of expectations placed upon the male body, these photographs reflect how internal strain becomes visible indirectly through ritual, repetition, physical exertion, and communal observation.
Fellow wrestlers sit or stand along the far perimeter of the dohyō, while a small number of spectators observe from inside the stable near a single viewing window. Beyond the glass, larger crowds gather in near silence, separated from the sounds of breath, impact, exertion, and recovery occurring within the ring itself. The boundary between discipline and performance becomes increasingly porous. What appears at first as ritualised combat gradually reveals a more complex emotional landscape shaped by scrutiny, hierarchy, mentorship, endurance, and the normalization of strain through repetition.
What initially appears as ritualized combat gradually reveals quieter psychological states - fatigue, frustration, shame, perseverance, and vulnerability - emerging through the body. Through these gestures and repetitions, the series reflects on broader lived experiences of navigating social systems and traditions that demand resilience, emotional control, conformity to rigid gender expectations, and the continual performance of strength.
