YAKUZA: ANTON KUSTERS

Visiting the boundaries of a hidden Tokyo.

interview: Daniel Perlaky
images: Anton Kusters

Belgian photographer Anton Kusters spent two years absorbing the lives of Yakuza members – being an open canvas and present in everything they do – seeing all the shades of grey.

This is decidedly not a photojournalistic project but rather the sort of absorbing art documentary that showed Kusters more of himself than it did of his subjects and set the first tones for a talented and insightful voice in photography.

What drew you into this project?

I wanted to do a project with my brother Malik, who has been living in Tokyo for a decade. We were having a beer one night and a Yakuza boss walked in the bar and had a short conversation with our friend Taka-san, the bar owner, which piqued our interest to know more about this hidden world.

How did you create the relationships to get you such access? What were the logistics like to enter such a closed world?

Taka-san became our fixer, and introduced us to Soichiro, a Yakuza boss of the family that controls Kabukicho in Shinjuku, Tokyo. We negotiated heavily for ten months, trying to make clear that I was trying to create an art project and learn about Japanese culture and Yakuza subculture, and that my intentions were not journalistic in any way. Japanese culture is one of subtleties, and this was no different. It was important for us to stress how I felt about the project: that I wanted to learn about them, as opposed to "taking pictures of them".

While Yakuza do not ever openly praise, I have been assured in private by the godfather that they highly regard the work

Were you able to participate in the culture and lifestyle or how much were you kept out as a foreigner? Did you feel unsafe?

Once permission given, they would regard it as a personal failure if they would not be able to guarantee my safety for something they agree to. Soichiro personally took it upon himself to teach me as much as possible how to be polite, how to understand and respect the culture and social interactions. This took several months, and of course, as a foreigner, there is no way I could ever understand or master it all.

Describe the process of photographing this project. How did these shots come about?

It was a "picture by appointment" type of project, where my brother and Soichiro would discuss the family's schedule (in as much detail as was possible without being a safety risk), and organize my stays according to that. I would spend anywhere between a week to two months with them, then a break of a few weeks, and then the process started again. This going on for exactly two years, which was the agreement we had with them. There are no posed or set up shots whatsoever. It is always me being present in everything that they do.

Did you have preconceived ideas of what you wanted to capture?

I had the vague idea of wanting to capture the atmosphere and what I felt like being with them. In a sense this is a very personal project, as it is the visualisation of my feelings at all those specific moments with the Yakuza. My canvas was completely open, not knowing where things would take me along the way.

What were some of the most interesting moments?

I started to realize that "being Yakuza" was something much more subtle and deep than I had thought before. Although criminal, they do see themselves as keepers of certain Japanese traditional values, and their actions are based upon them. I learned that it is not a world of simple black versus white, good versus bad, but a world with many shades of grey.