Gaijin is a Japanese word meaning «the foreigner»
My name is David Takashi Favrod. I was born on the 2nd of July 1982 in Kobe, of a Japanese mother and a Swiss father.
When I was 6 months old, my parents decided to come and live in Switzerland, more precisely in Vionnaz, a little village in lower Valais. As my father had to travel for his work a lot, I was mainly brought up by my mother who taught me her principles and her culture.
When I was 18, I asked for double nationality at the Japanese embassy, but they refused, because it is only given to Japanese women who wish to obtain their husband’s nationality.
It is from this feeling of rejection and also from a desire to prove that I am as Japanese as I am Swiss that this work was created. «Gaijin» is a fictional recital, a tool for my quest for identity, where auto-portraits imply an intimate and solitary relationship that I have with myself. The mirror image is frozen in a figurative alter ego that serves as an anchor point.
The aim of this work is to create «my own Japan», in Switzerland, from memories of my journeys when I was small, my mother’s stories, popular and traditional culture and my grandparents war recitals.
Sadako
2009
80 x 100 cm
digital C-print, mounted
signed, dated and numbered verso
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
Autoportrait en poulpe
(Self-portrait as an octopus)
2009
64 x 80 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Noville
2009
48 x 60 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Sans titre I
(Untitled I)
2009
64 x 80 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
L’envolée de poussins
(The flight of chicks)
2009
80x64cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
special edition of 25 + 2 artist’s proofs
produced for the Aperture Foundation New-York
60x48cm
digital C-print
signed, dated and numbered verso
Hayate
2009
64 x 80cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
L’ombre de Godzilla
(The shadow of Godzilla)
2009
48x60cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Churchill et Roosevelt
(Churchill and Roosevelt)
2009
64 x 80 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Kabuki V
2009
60 x 48 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Tanuki
2009
80 x 100 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Himeji
2009
48 x 60 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Ditien, Batien et maman
(Ditien, Batien and mum)
2009
80 x 100 cm
digital C-print, mountedsigned, dated and numbered verso
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
Ditien, Batien et moi
(Ditien, Batien and I)
2009
80 x 100 cm
digital C-print, mounted
signed, dated and numbered verso
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
Sans titre II
(Untitled II)
2009
80 x 100 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Batien et Ditien
(Batien and Ditien)
2009
80 x 100 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Le Dôme
(The Dome)
2009
116 x 145 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Poisson
(Fish)
2009
64 x 80 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Rikishi
2009
64 x 80 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Godzilla
2009
64 x 80 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Un paysage bleu
(A blue landscape)
2009
116 x 145 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
La femme du pêcheur
(The fisherman's wife)
2009
100 x 80 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
Poulpe
(Octopus)
2009
48 x 60 cm
digital C-print, mounted
edition of 7 + 2 artist’s proofs
signed, dated and numbered verso
