Cuny JanssenAmami

Amami, a Photo Book on the Second Largest of the Ryukyu Islands – this year (2010) Cuny Janssen is presenting two very special books of technically sophisticated production: “Amami” and “My Mother was a Turtle.” Now that the Dutch photographer’s first book has already been included by Martin Parr in his voluminous “The Photobook History: Volume II,” the two could quickly become sought-after collectors’ items on account of their limited edition.
Cuny Janssen repeatedly seeks out unusual forms of presentation in order to place her books in a specific relationship to the respective landscape and to the portraits of its people, who are often children. This is also the case with Amami, a photo book about the island of the same name, the second largest of the Ryukyu Islands, which lies off Kyushu, one of the four main Japanese islands. The face of the island, situated in the East China Sea and home to 7,000 inhabitants on some 70 square kilometres, is shaped by a wild, rugged-looking coastal vegetation, even though the subtropical climate, with an annual average of 21 degrees, permits two harvests a year. The portraits of schoolchildren, gathered on large centrefolds, convey an impression of a deep-seated seriousness that may perhaps result from the constant threat of a nature that can never be tamed.

Exhibition:
De Pont, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg, 20/03/2010 – 23/05/2010