Rinko Kawauchi A faraway shining star, twinkling in hand

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.