White Socks, Hot Girls, and Blowing Up a Car: The World of Photographer Sly Morikawa

Hot girls, hot cars, guns, tattoos, sex workers, city lights… faded dusk filtered through linen curtains, white socks and pillowy sheets. The world of Sydney-based artist and photographer Sly Morikawa is laden with nostalgia.

Compiled in zines that sell out instantly, her photography work, primarily shot on film, captures hard subjects softly. In her 2021 zine, Born Under a Bad Sign, there was the quiet desert, bikinis, and a blown-up car. 2022’s tome, SOFT CORE, featured model Charlotte Jane in and around Los Angeles, unclothed and uncensored. In 2023’s 24/7 Paradise, we saw Tokyo love motels, strippers and shibari. Between the bound pages, Sly’s work contemplates identity, sexuality and subculture, placing the heavenly beside the hellish.

The Japanese-Australian artist is currently preparing for two overseas exhibitions: Everything Reminds Me of You, at Village Gallery in Manchester, and White Socks at Salt and Pepper Tokyo. Both exhibitions will see the publishing of an eponymous zine.

The concept for Everything Reminds Me of You is “kind of hard to explain”, Sly told VICE.

“What can't be said in words is better found in images, for me at least,” she said. “Each photo is the glue that keeps the reality that I've created in my world of photos together, so I'm always looking for it, always thinking about it. It's like the experience of nostalgia, or grief, or romance, or the ambiance that comes from daydreaming, or feeling a ‘sense of place’.”

Ahead of her upcoming exhibitions, VICE caught up with Sly to chat nostalgia, intimacy and cars.

VICE: Sly, your upcoming exhibition/zine in Manchester is titled “Everything Reminds Me of You”. Is “you” a person, place, or thing?

Sly Morikawa: The “you” is none of those things and all of those things. It alludes to the vibe, or emotion that ties my work together. It’s my own intuition, and the intention behind my work. It’s the pull of sentiment and nostalgia, of grief, romance, and joy. It’s the ambience that comes from daydreaming, it’s the feeling of a sense of place. What I can’t express in words is better found in images. And every image I take is what binds the reality that I’ve created in my world of photographs together. 

What does nostalgia mean to you? Where, or what for, do you feel it the most?

I’ve always been an emotional person, and I find a lot of inspiration within my own emotional landscape. Nostalgia is one that I indulge in a lot because it’s such a complex, mixed emotion. It’s so powerful and bittersweet. It comforts you, but it can make you cry. I feel a lot of nostalgia towards my family and our connection to the motherland. But also towards past lives, past friendships, past places, past loves. 

Is there a specific period of time the images in the exhibition were taken in? How were you feeling during that period?

These images were all taken in the past six months. I’d just released “24/7 Paradise” at the beginning of this year, which was a chaotic but cathartic series of photos taken mostly in Japan last year. Despite having been back and forth a few more times since then, I found myself slowing down and reflecting on my work overall, rather than making work as a response to a particular thing. That’s where the inspiration for “Everything Reminds Me of You” came from. That sense of “you” became a metaphor, and I was always looking for it, always thinking about it. 

Your work explores identity, self, longing, nostalgia, memory… How has your background and life experience driven your practice?

I’m drawn to people with a strong sense of self, people with passion and presence, who have something unique to share. I love documenting people for that reason, and I enjoy reflecting on my own sense of self in that process. 

The longing and the nostalgia and the memory, I guess that’s all just a result of getting older. The older you get, the more there is to look back on. More love, more loss, more everything – it’s overwhelming and hard to ignore, so naturally, it drives part of my practice. 

A lot of your images have an inherent sensuality, but it’s incredibly soft, not at all explicit, is that something you actively pursue? 

I get told this a lot, but it’s not exactly intentional. I prefer to shoot intuitively – no planning, no mood boards, no special equipment, film only. The photographs will come out however they want to come out. But I’m open and present when I shoot, and I go with the flow, which allows the subject to be open and present too. You can see more of someone’s true self in a photograph when you take the time to connect with them, and that’s really important to me. I think that lends itself to the sensuality people see in my work. 

That being said, understanding what makes people look good is key to capturing that essence. I want people to feel good and look good. 

On your other upcoming exhibition/zine, “White Socks” – why white socks?

I wanted to create a series of intimate portraits that were connected in some way, but I also didn’t want to overthink any of it. I wanted it to be beautiful, vulnerable, but simple. I’d noticed that a lot of my work had a recurring theme of women wearing white socks or stockings, so it made sense to build upon that with a series especially dedicated to white socks. 

I love what white socks represent. They can be pure and innocent, or domestic and every day, or straight up provocative. Clean, dirty. They’re masculine, they’re feminine, they’re nothing – they’re just white socks. Everybody owns a pair.

How have you gone about choosing subjects for this series?

I did an Instagram call out for this project, which I’ve never done before, and I got such an amazing response from that. It was the most beautiful mix of people, but it was so hard to choose, so I ended up working with the people I already knew. I’d love to continue this series beyond the exhibition as there were so many others I’d love to meet and work with.

Hot cars are a recurring theme in your work, have you always been into cars? What is it about cars that inspires you?

I’ve always been into cars, it probably started with my oldest brother. He introduced me to things like cars and techno and rave culture when I was still super young. Early 2000s Sydney style. My dad had a Celica Supra in Tokyo in the 80s, my uncle had a Mazda RX7. The car culture in Japan is crazy, even today – it’s the culture more than the cars itself that inspires me. Like the drifting scene in the 90s, or even just the street cruising. 

There’s the lowrider scene in LA, which is such an incredible part of Chicano culture. And I’m still nostalgic for the early 2000s Sex Spec car culture in Sydney. I remember when I first started clubbing, underage, people would drive their modified cars down the main strip of Kings X. There was so much energy, so much ego. 

But across all the car scenes and subcultures that I’m into, it’s the commitment to aesthetic, to driving with style, to community, and to skill that inspires me most. It requires a lot of patience and dedication. I bought my Nissan 180sx last year because I always wanted an iconic JDM car. It inspires me because it looks cool. 

In 2021 you blew up a car, featured in your zine “Born Under a Bad Sign”. Could you talk a little about the inspiration behind that project, and how it came about?

That project came to life out of pure frustration. It was another long year of lockdowns, my grandparents had passed away in Japan, the borders were still closed. I was sad, angsty, and I wanted to channel that into something productive.

I like making zines when I’m feeling some type of way because I can hyper focus on something and put all my emotions into the different images. And I knew I wanted to blow up a car, so I built the rest of the zine around that. The project became a study on nihilism, subculture, and the desire for destruction. 

How did it feel to blow up that car? Please describe it for readers who never have and likely never will blow up a car in their lifetimes.

It honestly felt exhilarating, a huge adrenaline rush. It was powerful and mesmerising – you could really feel the heat from the flames. It felt unhinged, but I would do it again a million times if it were easier to source free cars.

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