Upon visiting Iceland in 2019, Rinko Kawauchi encountered geysers like the breath of Earth, glaciers surpassing human time, and the inner space of a dormant volcano that was reminiscent of the inside of a womb:
“What I saw seemed to illuminate my own existence. One experience inside a dormant volcano left a particularly strong impression. When I looked up, I saw light spilling in through the crater above, and its shape was reminiscent of female genitalia. As I gazed at this sight, I had the sense of being a fetus enveloped by the earth, and I felt a connection to this planet I have never felt before.”
Iceland was her point of departure for her most recent series of work “M/E”, a reference to both Mother Earth and the self, where the small ubiquitous occurrences from our daily lives are not unrelated, but inseparably connected to infinite nature. Kawauchi continued to document this feeling in photographs taken around her home during the pandemic and across the winter landscape of Hokkaido, culminating in her now legendary solo exhibition “M/E On this sphere endlessly interlinking”.
This most recent body of work by Kawauchi finds her returning to her point of origin: the connection between nature and human beings.
Bound by Hans Gremmen, the series of images appears as a singularly beautiful book as object. An essay, like a heartfelt letter, by the author, photographer, and art historian Teju Cole rounds out this serene publication:
“The photographs in M/E, it seems to me, are gentler than anything you have published so far, while still retaining your usual power. They come ever closer to abstraction, and command my attention the way the paintings of Agnes Martin do, or the music of Éliane Radigue. Here is the realm of things in unhurried but implacable motion, a flow that can be redirected but not stopped.”
Teju Cole (from ‘EVERYTHING FLOWS’, a contribution to this book)
Note: This book differs from the exhibition catalogue “Rinko Kawauchi: M/E On this sphere Endlessly interlinking” in that it is a collection of photographs from the “M/E” series only.