Presented by KYOTOGRAPHIE, From Our Windows brings together Rinko Kawauchi and Tokuko Ushioda, two leading figures in Japanese photography from different generations. First shown at KYOTOGRAPHIE in 2024, the exhibition explores how both artists have turned their attention to home, family and the seemingly ordinary moments that shape everyday life.
Rinko Kawauchi is drawn to modest and easily overlooked details, which she sees as expressions of the fragility of human existence. Small gestures, insects, changes in light and fleeting domestic scenes become reminders of the brevity of life. Her luminous images, often marked by soft highlights and delicate tonal transitions, reinforce this sense of impermanence. Kawauchi began photographing her family without initially planning to present the images publicly. Cui Cui developed over fifteen years and gradually became a record of birth, ageing, intimacy and loss. The death of her grandfather, followed by the birth of her nephew, made her recognise that a complete cycle of life had unfolded within the photographs. This realization led her to shape the work into a book.
In As it is, published in 2020, Kawauchi follows the first years of her daughter’s life. The photographs are accompanied by poetic texts and move between childhood, changing seasons and the loss of loved ones. Kawauchi originally intended to continue the project until her daughter reached adulthood. She later understood that the first three years represented a unique and unrepeatable period, as her daughter was already leaving infancy behind. This transformation became another expression of the natural cycles that run throughout her work.

Tokuko Ushioda presents two projects rooted in domestic space and personal experience. My Husband, photographed between 1978 and 1985 and rediscovered decades later, records the early years of her marriage and family life with affection and honesty. Rather than constructing an idealised portrait, Ushioda focuses on familiar gestures and moments that usually remain outside public view.
ICE BOX, begun in 1981 and still ongoing, examines refrigerators photographed inside Japanese homes. Each appliance becomes an indirect portrait of its owners, revealing eating habits, routines, economic conditions and personal preferences. Through an object that is usually considered purely functional, Ushioda uncovers intimate details about the people and households surrounding it.
Presented together in the essential spaces of VAGUE, the works of the two artists offer distinct yet closely connected approaches to domestic life.Ushioda observes the objects and relationships that define the home, while Kawauchi finds meaning in fragile moments that appear and disappear almost unnoticed. Both practices reveal how photography can transform everyday experience into a reflection on memory, identity and time.
Kawauchi does not impose a fixed interpretation on her photographs. Her images remain open, allowing viewers to form their own emotional and personal connections. This freedom is central to a practice that moves naturally between the intimacy of the family album, the physical experience of an exhibition and the private encounter offered by a photographic book.
Following its presentation in Kyoto and at Japan House São Paulo in 2025, From Our Windows arrives in Arles during the Rencontres d’Arles. The exhibition marks KYOTOGRAPHIE’s third consecutive participation in the Arles Associé programme and reflects the festival’s continuing commitment to bringing Japanese photography to an international audience.