Fumiko Imano - The Forever Child

Photography by Fumiko Imano

Between Rio de Janeiro and Japan, between childhood memory and adult self-scrutiny, Fumiko Imano has built an imaginary world that feels at once fragile and carefully constructed. Her photographs, often featuring the iconic imaginary twin who shadows, comforts, and mischievously haunts her, stage an inner dialogue that began long before she picked up a camera. Growing up between two cultures at a time when travel hadn’t yet become routine, she became acutely aware that “another world existed” and that knowledge never quite allowed her to settle back into just one. The distance between those worlds and the longing to return to a time when things felt simpler, continues to pulse quietly beneath the surface of her images.

For Imano, displacement is not a concept but a sensation that started in childhood and never quite receded. After leaving Brazil, life suddenly felt difficult and unfamiliar; the warmth of food, people, and atmosphere she had known there turned, in retrospect, into something like a lost homeland. That lingering dissonance takes shape in her work as solitude, awkwardness and a tender kind of alienation. The fictional twin becomes a way to hold that feeling at arm’s length and embrace it at the same time: a companion, a mirror, a stand-in for the child who didn’t want to grow up. When the two versions of herself meet in an image, “something happens between them. A story appears. It feels magical. Hard to explain.”

I kept looking at our family album

You grew up between Japan and Brazil, two cultures with very different ways of seeing the world. How did that experience shape your sense of identity and influence your artistic viewpoint?

When I was in Brazil from 1976–1982, it wasn’t a time when people travelled much. Especially in Japan, not many people were familiar with other countries. I felt lucky because I had already experienced another world. When I went back to Japan, I realised how completely different it was and that became a problem for me. I always wanted to go back to Brazil, or even back to the past. I kept looking at our family album. That feeling still influences me now.

Were there particular moments or experiences from that time that made you realise you saw things differently?

Food culture and the people. They were very nice. Those things made me realise how different the world could be.

Many of your works explore feelings of solitude and alienation. What emotions or personal experiences led you toward those themes?

Those themes come from always wishing I could have remained a child. After leaving Brazil, life suddenly felt difficult and unfamiliar. That sense of displacement never fully disappeared. It became part of me and inevitably shaped my work.

Has moving between cultures changed how you view yourself in your own images or the stories you want to tell through self-portraiture?

I’ve constantly struggled with an identity crisis and it has been very hard. Living between cultures made me unsure of where I truly belonged. That ongoing uncertainty influences both how I see myself and the narratives I explore through self-portraiture.

I didn’t want other people’s names on the work I made

What first inspired you to focus on self-portraiture and eventually to create your fictional twin as a recurring subject?

I quit the Fine Art course at Central Saint Martins because it didn’t teach me anything and I thought I wouldn’t make money as an artist. I then went to the London College of Fashion to learn fashion photography. But I quickly realised I couldn’t collaborate easily with others. I didn’t want other people’s names on the work I made. Fashion photography is teamwork, but I couldn’t do that. So, I had to be the model, stylist, makeup artist, and photographer myself, a DIY spirit. But my work is not only the twins. I also do solo portraits too. I actually started with those but people don’t notice them much anymore.

Your images with your twin often balance something playful and surreal with something quite profound. How do you find that balance in your creative process?

It’s funny. I’m always laughing when I cut and paste to make the twins. When the twins meet in the pictures, something happens between them. A story appears. It feels magical. Hard to explain.

If you could create a new scene or image with your twin that you haven’t yet, what would it be?

I haven’t been back to Rio de Janeiro since I was eight years old but I want to shoot there. I still haven’t returned because going alone feels dangerous.

I use imagination in my everyday life

And imagining for a moment that your fictional twin could live a life completely separate from you, what kind of person or artist do you think she’d become?

A forever child!

How does your family respond to your work, especially the intimate portraits with your twin? Do they understand or share your connection with these images?

In the beginning, it was very difficult for them to understand. At that time, self-portraits and personal imagery were uncommon. People kept themselves hidden, unlike today. It felt strange to them, but eventually they became accustomed to it. I’ve been working in this way since 1999.

You’ve also done commercial and collaborative projects alongside your personal art. What do you find most rewarding, and most challenging, about those two different worlds?

My personal work is created alone at home while commercial projects are built through teamwork. I call them “picnics” because I get to travel, enjoy catering, meet people, earn money and experiment with new images. Ultimately, it still feels like my work. Even when it looks different from my self-portraits, the consistent composition and framing make it unmistakably mine.

What role does imagination play in your everyday life outside of photography?

I use imagination in my everyday life, mostly through cooking.

What were you like as a teenager? Were there signs back then of the artist you’ve become?

I’m 51 now and my recollections of adolescence are faint. It wasn’t a good time, it felt like a nightmare, which may be why so much of that period has faded from my mind. After returning from Rio, life suddenly felt difficult. I became extremely sensitive and negative, caught in a constant identity crisis. During those years I kept asking myself, “How do I look?” because I felt so conflicted about my appearance. Over time, that question shifted into something deeper: “What am I?” When I finally accepted myself as both the subject and character of my own work, I felt able to show it publicly. I’m still navigating that process, and as I grow older and my body changes, some of those feelings return.

Were there people, family, friends, or mentors, who supported you or influenced how you handled those challenges?

My parents were worried about how I could survive doing this, but they still supported me, even if they had doubts. When I started working with Loewe, they finally began to trust what I was doing. Tyrone Lebon recently released a documentary about me. It’s the second one. The first was a short five-minute film in 2015. The new one is longer, using footage from 2013 at my parents’ house and from 2015 at my flat in Tokyo, when he visited to film me. I first met Tyrone in 2000 while I was assisting his father, Mark Lebon, when Tyrone was still a student. We had no contact for 13 years and then in 2013 he suddenly emailed me and asked if he could film me. I was very surprised that he remembered me and I am impressed to see that he had become a photographer like his father. I admire the way he supports artists and photographers, something I don’t feel I can do in the same way. I never really had a mentor, but when I began working with Michael Amzalag from M/M Paris on the Loewe shoots, I felt he became my first. I learned a lot from him, especially about fashion photography.

That’s when I decided to dedicate my life to this work

Can you recall a moment from your adolescence that felt pivotal or transformative, something that changed how you saw yourself or your art?

I don’t remember much from my adolescence but being selected as a finalist at the Hyères Festival in 2002 with my self-portraits was decisive. That’s when I decided to dedicate my life to this work.