Schema Magazine

I used to take baths almost everyday. The tub was a place for just me, where I could temporarily let go of my worries and find comfort in being away from everyone else. The bath is a fairly intimate place, when you think about it, being one of few independent activities in a day that is really time set aside for just you. It even feels weird to write about taking baths because it seems far too personal to share with other people. Japanese photographer Mariko Sakaguchi thinks so too, but has decided to visually and physically share this personal activity with the world.

Her project "One Hundred Views of Bathing" involves carting around a traditional wooden Japanese bathtub for one, then placing it and herself in a scene of private or public life. The pictures include Sakaguchi and her tub in people's bedrooms, crowded office buildings, and even deserted theaters, fully exposed and open to view. I logically deduced that she must have had an urge to conquer a fear of exposure after suffering public nudity nightmares throughout her life, but her art carries far more relevance than that.

In a time where people feel inclined to report every detail of their day through the use of social networking sites, how different is Sakaguchi's actions from the millions of people who post in virtual spaces of interaction? Her work speaks to a level of intimacy that has been lost in today's ability to share extremely private information with total strangers. When a person can get tagged using drugs in a photo or report how many people they hooked up with last night, the idea of where to draw the line between personal and public life has been blurred. This is where Sakaguchi's work places itself, by providing a tangible divide between the two by juxtaposing the intimate activity of bathing within a social context.

While Sakaguchi appears in the midst of people's homes and private activities, neither she nor anyone else in the frame acknowledges the other's existence. She is just there, with everyone in the picture evincing a disposition of normalcy to something that should be seen as the opposite. And this would seem to be the point of her work—that sharing your most personal aspects with everyone has become so pervasive that we don't recognize how odd it really is to do so. Yet it is the visual depiction of this that makes it such a jarring realization, as she purposely places herself in an environment where she can control her vulnerability. It's something that is painfully obvious once brought to your attention, and her art is a beautiful way to consider just how public our personal lives truly have become.