Natsumi Hayashi (born 1982)
Today's Levitation 5/21/2011, 2011
lambda print
14.75 x 22 inches: image
37.5 x 55.9 cm
23 x 30 x 0 inches: frame
58.4 x 76.2 cm
Edition 2/12. signed and numbered on back lower right in ink
Framed with Certificate of Authenticity. I’m trying to express myself in the series as someone free from Earth’s gravitational pull. In being free of gravity in the photographs, I am also not bound to societal conventions. I feel as though I am not tied to many things and able to be my true self. . . . It is clear that my feeling is only an illusion, but I hope that the illusion can be converted into reality and fixed in the photographs piled up as a diary open to the public.
—Natsumi Hayashi
Natsumi Hayashi created Today’s Levitations, a wildly popular online self-portrait diary. Hayashi began taking photographs for her “levitating self-portrait” series in fall 2010 and posted them as a diary blog on her website. These photographs depict the artist sailing down city sidewalks, hovering over a train platform, gliding in a restaurant, and suspended over a deserted field. She does not use computer manipulation to accomplish the illusion of the photos. Instead, Hayashi sets up the shot and jumps until she gets it right. To capture one perfectly timed photograph, it sometimes takes her more than 200 jumps.
Selected collections include the Cleveland Clinic, Beachwood, OH; Leonardo Amarante Associates, Buenos Aires; Miniature Museum of Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, Netherlands; New Mexico Arts Collection, Santa Fe; Sagamihara-city Gallery, Sagamihara-city, Kanagawa, Japan; and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA.

excellent