Pneuma

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Roshin 2026 Hardback, 1st edition, 80p New Photographed in a meadow in Tono, a region often labeled a kind of “primal origin” of Japan, Ayaka Endo’s photobook “Pneuma” depicts a gr oup of wild horses living there as part of an experimental site. Yet Endo was able to get up close to the horses. Captivated by a sensation she describes as “from somewhere before the world is grasped through meaning and language,” she captured a series of photographs that traverses the space between her inner and the outer world, rendering the scenes before her eyes in an almost superreal yet fantastical quality. “As I approached, taking great care not to give them any reason to be afraid, I began to sense something taking place in the space between us. Although barely noticeable, I could feel it in the cadence of our breathing, as subtle sensations in the air and on the skin. My awareness, my consciousness, expanded into the space around me, and I started pressing the shutter in unison with their breath. We had formed a connection that was instinctive and certain, yet also fragile. As I continued to photograph, there were moments when the gap between myself and the surrounding world suddenly became less clear, and the relationship between photographer and subject less distinct. The difference between myself and the horses no longer seemed to matter.” Show more