https://www.sfmoma.org/rinko-kawauchi-contemplates-small-mysteries-life/

In an interview by The San Francisco museum of art  with Rinko Kawauchi, she discuses the concept and inspiration behind her work. She talks about her interests in the small mysteries of everyday life which she explores in detail in the series Utatane in 2001. She also talks about Sublime beauty which she also explores in her work. Kawauchi reflects on how her photography comes from a state between “dreams and waking.”

Within the interview Kawauchi talks about her dreams in much detail and describes the them in their vast beauty. She said her dream contained “scenery so amazingly beautiful it made me almost scared.” This is what the definition of  sublime is, it means very great excellence or beauty that almost creates fear. Kawauchi uses one particular dream as a concept for one of her series Within her dream she witnessed the burning of a grass field. She describes it as “amazingly beautiful“. She wanted to know if the place in her dream was a real place. She later discovered the place again while watching the news. The place she had dreamed about was called Noyaki where the burn grass fields once a year so that they don’t become forests.  She creates a series using this practice called Ametsuchi, which is a Japanese word meaning heaven and earth. After this discovery she starts to become interested in the cycle of human practices such as the one she witnessed in her dream. She uses this interest as a foundation for all of her work as well as people’s daily lives. Here is an image from the series Ametsuchi.

Within the interview Kawuachi also talks about her fascination in small things. She says that small things use to save her as a child, “I was saved by small things as a child”. She describes about how she values small things because of her childhood, “I value small voices and things.”She uses her fascination as a concept in her work and she focuses on the details of smaller objects and subjects in her series. The main series where she uses this idea is Utante. She uses this name because it’s a way to “express the state of being between sleep and wakefulness.” The project explores liminal states which means the transition from one thing to another. Liminal State is the place from the beginning to the end of the transition. She is fascinated by the mysteries of the world and this is what she is primarily focusing on when taking her images. The image below is from the series Utante.

Dreams are Kawauchi’s main focus because she likes capturing things no one can explain. Her work is inspired by her own dreams. Although dreams are her primary concept she is also fascinated by the material that makes the world. Within the interview she talks about how there are so many theories about how the world is made but no one has any material proof. She likes the mystery behind it and explores this in her images. She says she “thinks about different theories and mysteries in the world.” She sees the world and everyday event as beautiful but at the same time she fears them because no one truly knows what they are. This is what Sublime beauty is.