shashasha

This is the official catalogue for Rinku Kawauchi’s exhibition “M/E – On this sphere, Endlessly interlinking” held at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery from October 8 until December 18, 2022. The catalogue collects works from all six series shown at the exhibition, included her latest series M/E.

Following forewords by the organizers and Rinko Kawauchi herself, the book introduces the reader to “4%”, a series rich in spheres, horizons and other subjects that evoke space and the universe; her 6x6 medium-format series “One Surface, An Interlinking” about everyday moments and tiny lives; “Light and Shadow”, shot on a trip through Ishinomaki, Onagawa, Kesennuma, and Rikuzentakata and inspired by an encounter with a pair of pigeons; “Ametsuchi”, which captures the Japanese tradition of controlled burns in Aso in Kumamoto as well as manifestations of humanity’s awe of nature, such as the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem; “M/E”, a new series that begun in 2019 and examines nature from micro and macro perspectives during the Covid-19 pandemic; “Yamanami”, a documentary series shot over three years at an art center and welfare facility for the disabled; as well as images from Kawauchi’s video works, including her work “Illuminance”.

The final part of the book comprises texts about Kawauchi’s work, such as a dialogue between Rinku Kawauchi and Haruo Saji as well as essays by the philosopher Masatake Shinohara, Tokyo Opera City curator Hana Takigami and Shiga Museum of Art curator Yasuhiro Arai. All texts are available in Japanese and in English translation.

“Our hair and nails grow; day by day, second by second, we are closer to death.
When I kept my eyes fixed on small but certain changes like these, I felt as if the flow of time that seemed to accelerate every year had somehow been rewound a little.
My aging and my daughter’s development proceed equally; will warming continue the same way, until the glaciers I once saw are melted away? Everything is connected to the life we find before us.
Even if we cannot stop ourselves heading toward death, surely we can improve the place where we live.”
― from Rinko Kawauchi’s foreword