Between Cuteness and Unease
You drop a coin into the machine and wait. A short pause, a mechanical click, then a capsule falls out. Behind the glass: a crowded mix of bright, garish, nostalgic figures—some cute, some slightly unsettling—set against a worn, unglamorous backdrop. It’s tempting to call this “kitsch,” but that label doesn’t quite fit. In East Asia — where these images were taken — such colorful displays are part of everyday culture; dismissing them as kitsch would be elitist and ethnocentric. Shaped by kawaii aesthetics, they bring small moments of lightness and distraction.
Look a bit closer, though, and a tension appears. The cheerful objects contrast with their rough surroundings, and some figures sit somewhere between charming and eerie. Instead of being simply decorative, they reflect a sensibility that allows both at once — where sweetness and strangeness, beauty and ugliness coexist.
Photographed during field trips to China, Japan, and Taiwan
