HANABI
Reminiscent of Japanese photography of the 1960s Rinko Kawauchi’s work is the search for the sublime amid the banal. Her series ‘HANABI’ (Japanese term for ‘firework’) depicts the photographer's vision of a fireworks show. The breezes of summer nights, the footsteps of children running alongside a riverbank, clouds portending warm showers and the sweet smell of apple candy are at powerfully nostalgic, at once both beautiful and melancholy. We are drawn in by a dance of lights and colors, and in the blink of an eye, an elegant and sensory party draws to a close, leaving us wondering what Kawauchi saw in the fireworks, and what lies beyond them.
