Residence Plan
Several incidents happened in the past few years in Japan involving sumo wrestling and women. In 2018, the mayor of Maizuru city (Kyoto) had a stroke on the dohyo sumo ring while introducing a tournament, and two female nurses immediately ran to save his life, but the gyoji referee immediately tried to get them out of the sacred ring. Contrary to this traditional response, today, more and more women are starting to practice sumo. What are the motivations of these female sumo wrestlers? Moreover, how do they combine practicing sumo with their lives as women in Japan?

Artist Profile
1) «Hernie & Plume», book, published by The Eriskay Connection (NL), 2020
2) Selected artist for .TIFF artist program by Antwerp's photography museum FoMu (BE), 2019
3) «To tell my real intentions, I want to eat only haze like a hermit,», self-published artist book made at Reminders Photography Stronghold (JP), 2018

Base of Activity: Brussels, Belgium
Media Used: Photography, text & mixed media

Katherine Longly has completed programs at numerous schools with a focus in photography, communications and anthropology. She develops her projects into opportunities to encounter different social realities and their protagonists, and tries to understand their unique logic. She takes photographs and collects stories, images, testimonies and archives, that she organizes into a multi-layered narration, from which humor is never excluded. She works in close collaboration with the people she meets, and involves them at every stage of her projects.

This project is supported by: