shashasha

The surface of the city

The succession of elements from an unnamed city in Eri Kawamura’s debut photobook “Touch of the Urban Skin” reveals itself as parts of a landscape that accompanies us each day in our lives in the modern age. The photographs, taken just before the Corona pandemic emptied the urban spaces, already contain few signs of people. There is a silence in the textures, surfaces, patinas, patterns and visual designs of Kawamura’s photographs that speaks of the coming transformation to our lives, but the images – which focus on the physical textures that bring us and the city into contact – also convey traces of life and liveliness.

The book also includes text contributions by urban researcher Yuji Yoshimura and art critic Hifumi Nakayama as well as an afterword by Eri Kawamura (all texts included in Japanese and English translation).

“Every city, every being, is living in an irretrievable moment. I time the tide will turn, and the skin of this city will be metabolized and disappear. Preserved here in Touch of the Urban Skin are some of its fragments.”
— from Eri Kawamura’s afterword