Using simple but evocative portraiture, Coco captured her subjects in their natural environments. The classroom, the park, the city streets and other quotidian settings form the backdrop for photographs that subtly hint at the thoughts, feelings and passions of the teenagers. Holding their instruments, jumping on their skateboards and posing in their respective uniforms; each subject allows the viewer into their world for a brief moment.

Compositionally, the images are straightforward and neutral, and Coco says this simplicity was key to allowing the audience to compare and contrast each group or individual. “I think the series more or less follows only one rule, which is having someone in the middle of the frame,” she explains. “So you can look at the monk, you can look at the maiko, you can look at the skater kid, and you can see how they are all teenagers of similar age, but their context is so different within the same city.”

Of the many photographs in Ookini, Coco singles out a shot of two girls playing by the river as one her favourites from the series. Their candidness, she tells us, embodies one of the most crucial qualities of adolescence: optimism. “The girls in the picture were unaware of me and my camera and they seemed completely absorbed by their games and fantasy worlds… [This image] evokes in me a feeling the Japanese call ‘seishun’, or ‘spring’ in English. It refers to the ‘springtime of life’ and those years in which everything is new and full of vitality, and the potential that remains present in many aspects of life.”