Mayumi Suzuki grew up in a family that was deeply immersed in photography for generations. This connection can be felt in her work: the belief, and the knowledge, that photography can help individuals and societies express themselves and free themselves. Her last series, ‘Restoration Will,’ about her family in the aftermaths of the 2011 Tohoku devastation, was very personal and deeply moving. This new series, ‘HOJO,’ is just as much, in a different way: she brings us even closer, using the medium to create intimate narratives inspired by her current experience, that is with her own body. Mayumi Suzuki started working on this series, ‘HOJO’ (‘Fertility’), in 2020, just after she gave up on treatment to cure her infertility. When she saw the unsold vegetables lined up in the markets — the forked carrots and daikon deformed in various ways — she started photographing them along with portraits of herself, feeling she had something in common with them for giving up on her fertility. This series is an account of her experience, through photographs, sonograms, and other imagery, that allows her to share her journey through the complex promises of a woman’s body. The stark contrast between the red and the black and white talks to the intensity of the struggle between the body and the mind.