→ 中文

Thank you all for coming to the photo exhibition. I am photographer Rinko Kawauchi. This time, I am showcasing two of my series in Shanghai: "M/E" and "Interlinking." "Mother/Earth" consists of works photographed between 2019 and 2022. The "Interlinking" series is a selection from a longer span of time, newly chosen and synthesized. These works have been re-selected and combined to form a new presentation.

→ Back

The M/E series began when I started shooting in Iceland in 2019. At that time, my daughter was about two and a half years old, almost three. After my daughter was born in 2016, I hadn't been creating works formally, and I felt somewhat uneasy inside. So, I wanted to go somewhere far from daily life, a distant country to shoot. This idea led me to Iceland.

After the first shoot, I planned to go again for a second and third time. However, in 2020, the pandemic hit, and I couldn't travel abroad. As a result, I later shot some works near my home in Chiba, Japan, and also in slightly farther places like Hokkaido.

Ultimately, I originally intended to shoot in distant places, but I ended up shooting in my daily life. This experience made me realize that we live on the same planet and share the same environment. I deeply felt that the things happening in distant countries are not unrelated to me. We share the same time and era, and this feeling was very strong. I incorporated this feeling into the series and completed the creation.

→ Back

This photo of the children was taken about two weeks before the pandemic began. As the pandemic gradually spread, I felt very uneasy. The moment captured in the photo shows my child and my friend's child playing together. At that time, the setting sun happened to shine in, illuminating the children. Although I was feeling very anxious at the time, that moment brought me a glimmer of brightness. These children, in a sense, symbolize the future. I believe they will create a brighter future than the present. This hope in my heart may also be reflected in this photo.

→ Back

Most of the videos were shot at the same time as these photographic works, capturing the same moments. However, there are also some contents that do not appear in the photos. I believe presenting these through video would be more interesting, as some subjects can only be fully appreciated through moving images. I hope everyone can switch back and forth between photos and videos to fully appreciate the different dimensions and perspectives they offer.

→ Back

The "Interlinking" series does not particularly emphasize the era or period of shooting. It is composed of selections from my past works, curated and arranged by me. The oldest piece dates back to around 2010, and there are even older ones, with some shot around 2004. These works are displayed in parallel, without regard to chronological order.

Among them, there is a photo of a flower titled Otome Yuri, a somewhat rare flower that is classified as near-threatened. This flower originates from Fukushima Prefecture, though it was photographed in Tokyo. But it’s from Fukushima. It carries a meaning of mourning for the events of the Great East Japan Earthquake and is imbued with various emotions that I have carefully woven into the editing of this series.

→ Back

The girl walking on the road is not my child, but the child of my friend. At that time, she was only 4 years old. I wanted to take a photo of her walking on the road, so I asked her to walk a little and set up the scene to capture this photo.

This is a photo full of metaphors. As I mentioned in the M/E series, children are symbols of the future, and this photo also evokes a sense of the future. At the same time, the scene of walking on a road can also overlap with someone's life. Therefore, I placed this photo at the very beginning of the series. It is also a metaphor that can overlap with someone's life.

→ Back