we smile when we want to unfolded in response to public comments made against Shiori Ito, a Japanese journalist and filmmaker who won a high-profile civil lawsuit against Noriyuki Yamaguchi, her alleged rapist, in December 2019. Following the ruling, Yamaguchi continued to attack the validity of Ito’s claim by telling reporters that “real sexual assault victims do not smile at press conferences.”
In support of Shiori Ito and survivors of sexual assault, I interviewed 11 people in Tokyo about their relationship to smiling, consent, gender, and gaze, and took their portraits: whether smiling or un-smiling. Here, in this project, subjects claim flexibility inside a photograph, however public or private, and in their own words, and gestures, express their truths.
