Word: Fransisca Bianca
Photos: Dazed Digital

Two seemingly contradicting topics that aren’t supposed to be naturally related to one another. However, Japanese artist Yuki Kobayashi begs to differ by using sports as a platform for his art on sexuality. Believing that sports is an area where there are still constant racial and gender stereotypes, Kobayashi attempts to lead his audience into thinking of the body just as it is, not as a subject of classification by gender-divided clothes. He explains, “Let’s just see it as a real body – this is what you’re hiding under the clothes you choose. It’s a body and you can’t choose how you’re born. That’s your original skin.”

Kobayashi also believes that sexuality should be more irrelevant in sports. Explorative and experimental as he is, he tries to challenge ideas that the mind has on the body through wearing female clothes for his art inhibition. Perhaps many would wonder, wouldn’t that turn him into some sort of a cross dresser? Wouldn’t it decrease his masculinity to some extent? And more similar questions that like it or not, becomes proof that society is still unable to separate one’s sex with simply their preferences; the clothes they choose to wear, the way they choose to behave, how they choose to engage in romantic and sexual relationships. On the contrary to these biases, Kobayashi believes that the body’s sex would not go through any change regardless of the gender that has been assigned to the clothes that the body wears. Therefore, he tries to explore any possibilities of clothes being more neutral, especially in sports.

His point may be proven relevant in a society where the human body is often not seen as an example of raw, natural product of biology. But rather, the body becomes a subject of a certain boy/girl label that further dictates how the body should behave. The question then remains; can society free its mind and begin to release the human body from the binding chains of gender classifications?