Oil on photo transfer on board, B4, 25.7 × 36.4 cm

Blue-footed boobies are known for their mating dance, a strange little performance of lifted feet, poses and display. Here, an oversized bird struts through Koganecho, while the cormorants that usually gather along the river are reduced to small, almost invisible figures in the distance.

Once a red-light district, the area still carries traces of desire as something performed, negotiated and sold. A cigarette hangs from the bird’s beak, and behind it a faint light spreads in rays, recalling an outdated flag without fully becoming one.

The scale is slightly wrong on purpose. The bird feels seductive, comic and imposing at once, somewhere between courtship and occupation, instinct and performance, pleasure and addiction.