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Nakadate, Laurel

American, b. 1975

BiographyLaurel Nakadate explores tensions between identity and vulnerability through photography, film, and performance. She often places herself as the subject of her work—both alone and during interactions with strangers—to engage viewers with feminist considerations of bodily autonomy, objectification, and gender roles. Her interest in self-documentation stems from her family history. Following World War II, her father spent his early childhood in a Japanese internment camp where cameras were illegal. Nakadate uses her practice to take control over the narrative centering her experience as an Asian American woman and her relationship to whiteness, womanhood, and ancestry.

The images in the Museum of Contemporary Photography permanent collection are from her series 365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears (2011), where she photographed herself crying every day for a year to contrast the performance of happiness on social media with a deliberate display of sadness. Seemingly taken with little attention to lighting or composition, 365 Days demonstrates Nakadate’s ability to foreground authenticity and emotional intimacy. In her own words, she uses the series as an “opportunity to look at myself, to place my body in the frame to be recognized by the camera” she told Indy Week in 2023.

Laurel Nakadate received a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1998) and an MFA in photography from Yale University (2001). In 2022, she became the Graduate Program Director at School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where she is also a professor of photography. Nakadate has participated in solo and group exhibitions at Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art PS1, New York; and Reina Sofia, Madrid; to name a few. Her work is in the permanent collections of Ackland Art Museum, North Carolina; Whitney Museum, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and various others.