ENTRY DESCRIPTION
6 women, 6 bodies wrapped in a steel exoscheleton. Taking inspiration and emulating with modern tools the ancient technique of view cameras, Luca Vecchi builds Okaasama (honourable mother), a photographic project that takes us in a dimension with rarefied atmospheres where beauty makes space to a sense of anguish and disquieting safety at the same time. Motherhood is interpreted as a battlefield of the Japanese Middle Age.
The artist starts from the observation of the yoroi, traditional Japanese armours that imitate animals’ etymology (their behaviour and their wild battle structure). In fact, these wartime findings were built with the aim to scare the opponents by psychologically destabilising them.
The darkened eyes and mouth of the Kabuto (helmet) and of the Menpo (steel mask tore apart by a demonic grimace) depersonalised the warrior and put the rival against their deepest fears – it was no longer a battle between equals but a karmic battle. The eyes are darkened as a comparison between a statue without feelings and life. As a contrast, women curves emerge from this steel frame showing female grace of any age and constitution.
By putting the image of the warrior and the one of the mother close to each other we can glimpse at different attitudes, physiognomy and ages. Different social classes and psychological profiles. The mother can praise her waiting or dissimulate it. She can mask it, ignore it or even curse it.
A blessing and a curse, the son that will be born (the sword) can be used (taught) by the samurai (the mother) with moral or immoral purposes: for the greater good for themselves or the world, or to reach evil.

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