Rinko Kawauchi

Rinko Kawauchi is one of the most established artists in Japan and known worldwide for her dreamy, poetic and unique imagery. The new exhibition "a faraway shining star, twinkling in hand" features artist’s two most recent series, M/E and An interlinking. These works include everything from photographs to video art, light boxes and photo sculptures.

The M/E series is a tribute to “Mother Earth”, with photos of grand natural phenomena from Kawauchi’s trip to Iceland in 2019. She planned to return to the country to finish the series but was forced to remain in Japan when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. This led to completing the second part of the series with photos from her everyday life and from winter in Hokkaido, Japan.

In the ongoing An interlinking series, Kawauchi has depicted her everyday life for 20 years, often with her daughter as her subject. Taking both a micro and macro perspective has become significant for Kawauchi’s artistry, an approach that becomes particularly apparent in the contrast of these two series: small everyday situations in the face of grand natural phenomena. The letters M/E can also be read as “me” and refer to the connection between the small individual and the massive “Mother Earth”.

Artist

Rinko Kawauchi currently lives and works in Chiba, Japan. She burst onto the international scene in 2001, when she received the Kimura Ihei Photography Award, Japan’s most important photography prize for emerging talent, and published the books Utatane (Catnap), Hanabi (Fireworks), and Hanako.

Since this triple debut, she has published another 27 books and has been awarded the eminent Annual Infinity Award (2009) from the International Center of Photography in New York. The exhibition a faraway shining star, twinkling in hand will be shown at Fotografiska Tallinn from May 24 to September 8, 2024.

A New Day – Rinko Kawauchi

A New Day

The Sky was a deep blue, not a cloud in sight

Listen closely

One ripples, two

Through countless nights

A faraway, shining star, twinkling in hand

See, just a little bit more

I’ll be waiting over the mountain

A sky from a distant day

Shimmers on the water’s surface

Together with the sound of everything bursting

The river flows endlessly on

Like how a bubble doesn’t stay round forever

I’m endlessly carried along

In a room enveloped in the evening glow

I listen to the sound of the clock ticking

Have you made your way through the dark tunnel?

Everyone in song

You’ve made your way from the other shore

The place connects both sides

Another beginning

This exhibition is curated by Jessica Jarl, Global Director of Exhibitions, Fotografiska and Maarja Loorents, co-founder and exhibitions director at Fotografiska Tallinn, in collaboration with the artist.