Ametsuchi: Photographs by Rinko Kawauchi

Rinko Kawauchi’s book, Ametsuchi, is comprised of two Japanese characters meaning heaven and earth, and is taken from the title of one of the oldest pangrams in Japanese, a chant in which each character of the Japanese syllabary is used. Kawauchi brings together images of distant constellations and tiny figures lost within landscapes, as well as photographs of a traditional style of controlled-burn farming (yakihata) in which the cycles of cultivation and recovery span decades and generations. Punctuating the series are images of Buddhist rituals and other religious ceremonies.