Margaret Lansink
Coming home in a different and unknown culture. Is it possible, one wonders?
It was the big reveal for me during my six-week residency in Onishi, Japan. Shooting for my series Kindness of One and Borders of Nothingness, I encountered that strange feeling of home away from home. Without speaking or reading the language, one needs to go back to the simplest and truly human way of interaction: gestures of hands, heads and small sounds were called for.
In Japan, human interaction is often a well-rehearsed movement, with dedication and an eye for the tiniest of details. In the small rural town of Onishi, there was a family run sushi place. The father was obviously the master, the son was the apprentice and had probably already trained for years trying to master all the intricate details of preparing the most beautiful foods for us.
We often went there for the friendliness, the great sushi and the ‘play’ between the family members. Being the gajin in Onishi, the son was allowed to train his skills on our orders but the father was always there watching from the doorframe as his son worked. Unknown to us was whether he was proud of the accomplishments of his son or still not satisfied.
The son is bowing his head. To concentrate even further on our food or did he feel the ever-present gaze of his father….?
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Coming home in a different and unknown culture. Is it possible, one wonders?
It was the big reveal for me during my six-week residency in Onishi, Japan. Shooting for my series Kindness of One and Borders of Nothingness, I encountered that strange feeling of home away from home. Without speaking or reading the language, one needs to go back to the simplest and truly human way of interaction: gestures of hands, heads and small sounds were called for.
In Japan, human interaction is often a well-rehearsed movement, with dedication and an eye for the tiniest of details. In the small rural town of Onishi, there was a family run sushi place. The father was obviously the master, the son was the apprentice and had probably already trained for years trying to master all the intricate details of preparing the most beautiful foods for us.
We often went there for the friendliness, the great sushi and the ‘play’ between the family members. Being the gajin in Onishi, the son was allowed to train his skills on our orders but the father was always there watching from the doorframe as his son worked. Unknown to us was whether he was proud of the accomplishments of his son or still not satisfied.
The son is bowing his head. To concentrate even further on our food or did he feel the ever-present gaze of his father….?
Margaret Lansink is a fine art
photographer who works and lives in a tiny village just above Amsterdam.
Lansink received a BA from the PhotoAcademy in Amsterdam and attended
Masterclasses in Paris for 2 years. Lansink’s work has been awarded the
Hariban Grand Prize and has been shortlisted for Gomma Grant. She has published
8 books (4 of them handmade). She visually investigates the relationship
between humans and their (physical) environment trying to bridge the
personal and universal. Lansink’s photographs are purely intuitive and her
images present an open and honest reflection of her own inner emotions at a
certain time, space and interaction - shot as self-portraits in the broadest
sense of the word.