Yamauchi – Jinen

For nine years, photographer Yu Yamauchi travelled to the island of Yakushima in the south of Japan, each time spending a month in its dark and dense primeval forest. Alone within nature, Yamauchi explored not only the boundaries of his own body and mind but also the relationships between nature, reality, and himself. Distanced from cultural and social influences, he was able to approach a pure human experience as closely as possible. ‘Jinen’ is a visual record of this dialogue with nature, conveyed in photographs that range from shots of sublime beauty to close-up examinations of patterns and seemingly otherworldly shapes and forms emerging from the dark of night.