[4] Idemitsu considered her undergraduate education to be understimulating, and often frustrated with what she believed to be misogynistic comments made by her professors.
She participated in many extra-curricular events, such as the University's Contemporary Literature Society, and was highly politically engaged, joining in student demonstrations against the US-Japan Security Treaty of 1960.
[4] It was only upon her return to Japan that she could properly produce her At Santa Monica (1973-5) At Any Place (1975-8) series, using and reflecting on the images she shot of the United States.
In particular, Idemitsu credits Nobuhiro Kawanaka and Kyōko Michishita for helping her learn the technical process of video equipment.
[4] Idemitsu was also immersed in the broader Japanese art scene, collaborating with Yoneyama Mamako after watching her pantomime Housewife's Tango to produce At Any Place 4 (1978).
[8] On her return to Japan the cumbersomeness of the equipment and an inability to easily film outdoors led her to use indoor simgle-camera setups.
[6] Critics such as Scott Nygren have attempted to locate Japanese cultural origins within her work, claiming a similarity between her narrative form with Noh theatre.
[14] Recognized for her feminist beliefs,[9] Idemitsu's work is a reflection not just on gender roles, but also on the nature of personal identity and self in society.
[16][10] Idemitsu also does not shy away from depicting the disconcerting realities of Japanese womanhood, including scenes of domestic abuse, harassment and rape.
In Idemitsu's seminal feminist video, the image of a tampon swirling in a toilet bowl slowly appears, as the artist speaks about the troubling roles, responsibilities and expectations of women in a clinical tone.
[16] Commissioned by the American Center Japan, this hour-long documentary video is Idemitsu's intimate portrayal of her then-husband, Sam Francis.
Idemitsu proposes photographs by her collaborator, Akira Kobayashi, to construct an eerie found-image video.
Idemitsu balances blatant images of Americana to suggest the journey of a foreigner through these iconic landscapes, continually searching for a place within them to belong.
On one lily, erect like a phallus, a symbol of the male sexual organ, hands pull the petals off a red rose.
There is a woman's voice-over endlessly repeating "Have a good day" and "Welcome home", a chorus echoing the supposed monotony of housewife's existence.
However, Idemitsu insists that this Western type of cradle also looks like a coffin, reminding people that "in the midst of life we are in death".
[10] What a Woman Made: Autobiography of a Filmmaker (ホワット·ア·うーまんめいど : ある映像作家の自伝 / Howatto a ūman meido : Aru eizō sakka no jiden), Iwanami Shoten (岩波書店), 2003.