RINKO KAWAUCHI, ATELIER YAMANAMI

Atelier Yamanami was founded in 1986 in Koka City, Shiga Prefecture. In 1990, it shifted away from a subcontract-based production model toward an approach centered on living fully and authentically, supporting diverse forms of expression that respond to each individual’s thoughts, rhythms, and pace. Since its founding, no one wishing to join has ever been turned away. What began with three participants has grown to a community of ninety, supported today by a staff of twenty-seven, functioning as a multidisciplinary care and activity center. In recent years, Atelier Yamanami has drawn growing international attention for its sustained engagement with creative practices, welcoming a steady flow of visitors from abroad to its studios.

The people who work here live with a wide range of intellectual, mental, and physical disabilities. Their conditions, needs, and ways of being in the world are profoundly diverse. How time is spent, which spaces feel calm or necessary, what can or cannot be done, what is desired or resisted—these vary from person to person. Within this environment, individuals neither compare themselves to others nor compete. Instead, they work from a place of self-acceptance, building and inhabiting worlds that are unmistakably their own.

For many, there is little concern about whether their daily actions or forms of expression might be considered “art.” Social recognition, evaluation, or praise is rarely a motivating factor. What matters more than the resulting objects is the time spent making, the gestures repeated day after day, and the act of shaping one’s own world through sustained attention and effort. Expression emerges not as a goal, but as a natural consequence of living and working in this way.

Each person here is already a singular and irreplaceable presence. In a society that is in constant transformation, Atelier Yamanami continues to learn from them the importance of remaining faithful to oneself, and of recognizing that being as one is—without correction or comparison—is itself both meaningful and necessary. According to Masato Yamashita, Director of Atelier Yamanami.

Rinko KAWAUCHI Born in Shiga Prefecture in 1972, Rinko Kawauchi has received wide international acclaim. In 2002, she was awarded the 27th Kimura Ihei Photography Award for her photobooks Utatane and Hanabi, and in the same year received the 25th ICP Infinity Award in the Art category.

The video works presented in this exhibition originated from a commission Kawauchi received to photograph Atelier Yamanami for a publication issued by Taneya, a confectionery company based in Omihachiman, Shiga Prefecture. Following this initial encounter, she continued to visit Atelier Yamanami independently, developing the work through sustained engagement. Her photobook Yamanami comprises images made at the workshop between 2018 and 2021.

Created during the COVID-19 pandemic, this body of work prompted Kawauchi to reflect on the contrast between the time she spent at Atelier Yamanami and the world beyond it. In an essay titled A Place to Just Be Yourself, she describes the workshop as a site that quietly invites reflection on ways of being that, though profoundly simple, are difficult to sustain in contemporary society.

People often drive themselves into isolation through constant comparison with others, dwelling on past failures and anxieties about the future, and in doing so, lose their presence in the here and now. Even while aware of this emptiness, one can easily become overwhelmed by the steady flow of information. Kawauchi has spoken of how visiting Atelier Yamanami allowed her to step back from this state, leaving her with a sense of having been gently cleansed.

By sharing moments of laughter with those before her, and by witnessing their complete absorption in the act of making, Kawauchi herself was able to return to a state of openness and attentiveness, rediscovering the inner expanse she carries within. For her, Atelier Yamanami became a place that offered precisely this kind of experience.