命預けます | INOCHI AZUKEMASU | I GIVE YOU MY LIFE

© Chloe Jafe

In 2013, Chloé Jafé moved to Tokyo with the ambition to meet the women of the Yakuza. But no one enters this mafia, one of the most legendary in the world, without being invited. After spending a year perfecting her Japanese, immersing herself in the codes of a culture miles apart from her own, having been a hostess in a bar and combing the city's red-light districts, the lock finally broke in. Through a lucky encounter and out of temerity.

Inducted by a Boss, she was able to approach these padlocked clans, their official rituals and gatherings, the taboo and tattooed stories that their kimonos camouflage, and through them, their wives, daughters and mistresses.

Women lurking in the shadow of the men to whom they have dedicated their existence, marked on the skin by this dedication, which automatically excludes them from society.

The “gift of one’s life”, Inochi Azukemasu in Japanese, constitutes the first part of her trilogy.

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For the present book
© the(M) éditions, IBASHO 2023

Photographs and paintings
© Chloé Jafé

Text
© Élodie Cabrera

Illustrations
© Naoko Matsuda

Artistic direction: Teun van der Heijden
Printed by Robstolk in the Netherlands
Printed in October 2023
ISBN: 979-10-95424-44-4

With the support of Centre national des arts plastiques