RIE

RIE gathers photographs Lena C. Emery made of Japanese women undressing in front of her camera. She frames the project around revealing oneself as a specifically feminine kind of exchange.

For the series, Emery spoke with Japanese women and then photographed them. Her subjects gradually removed their clothing, moving through poses, rest, and small gestures, sometimes playful, over the course of a sitting. Kominek published the book in 2016 as a 78-page hardcover, limited to 750 copies. The pictures track how each sitter's self-presentation grows more delicate and complex as the clothing comes off. The subjects seem absorbed in their own experience even as they stay visibly aware of the camera.

Emery returned to a Japanese subject in the later book Yuka & The Forest, published by Art Paper Editions. RIE is among the earlier instances of that sustained interest in photographing women in Japan.