Shint艒 is a belief system in Japan that predates historical records. There is no singular god. No life after death. The world is instead animated by divine spirits, called kami, that can inhabit natural elements, from the infinite to the detailed. The work of Japanese contemporary photographer Rinko Kawauchi is an expression of Shint艒. In one photograph, dewdrops thread through the lines of a spider鈥檚 web. Flames lick across an expansive volcanic landscape. A frog, no larger than a fingernail, gazes outward. In another frame, sunlight streaks through a forest of tall trees. This phenomenon, known as komorebi in Japanese, describes the sun’s rays literally “leaking” through trees to create dappled pools of shade. Kawauchi easily moves between the monumental and the minutiae, tenderly looking out to the edges of our world.
This Arnolfini exhibition is the sum of 20 years of the artist’s practice, including photographic series Illuminance, AILA, Ametsuchi and M/E, alongside many films and photo books. There is no afterlife in Shint艒, so it seems logical that Kawauchi turns her attention to the rhythms of life with piercing curiosity. A baby鈥檚 head crowns. A bird dies flat on its back, with a sharp midday shadow sewn to its side. Icicles form. Chicks screech upward. Bright red blood is spattered on a roadside. Kawauchi captures these cycles with an unsentimental gaze, holding their inflection points up in suspense. Each photograph relies on those hung alongside it to form these associations. Kawauchi says: “Seeing images next to each other opens up the imagination and gives birth to something else.” From plants and mammals, geological layers and burning star constellations, Kawauchi considers the everyday with tenderness and terror in equal measure.
| Arnolfini, Bristol | Until 16 February
Words: Charlotte Rickards
Image credits:
1. From the series Ametsuchi 2012. 漏 Rinko Kawauchi
2. Image 3. Untitled. From the series Illuminance 2009. 漏 Rinko Kawauchi
