Akai Ito

For this project, I was asked to reveal a hidden community whilst being confined by the walls of the pandemic. After various endeavours, the result of my work became a piece to invoke curiosity and critical thinking into the lives we share with our peers.

Akai Ito; the title of my project, refers to an East Asian legend of how those who are destined to be together are connected by a red thread of fate. 

I took this belief and the use of photography to explore this term through wider means. Due to the struggles and the divides the pandemic this year had made, I had participants, themselves, take an image in response to the question ‘What is your most intimate space’, exploring the idea of how we are all connected and what connects us. All of the participants ranged in age, lifestyles and gender. The capture of the red thread of fate begins with myself and shows the journey of how one connection leads to another by following the line, bringing to light characteristics that we share and yet differ; eventually revealing a hidden community.