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Traversing the threshold between sleep and wakefulness, we find visual suspense lingering on the boundary between nature and culture. The space-time of the shores that surface within Asako Narahashi’s photographs provoke the thoughts and sentiments of an era of crisis.

On sale in Japan on July 15, 2013

Photographs by Asako Narahashi

Tipped-in image on embossed hard cover
58 color plates
72 pages, 257 x 297 mm (10 1/8 x 11 11/16 inches)
with slipcase and booklet insert
Price: 8,100.- yen
ISBN978-4-905254-02-7

Book design by Kazunari Hattori

12 page booklet, an interview with Asako Narahashi
by Akihito Yasumi (Japanese and English) titled
“Toward the Indefinite Time of Water's Edge”

Ever After Box Set
A boxed set containing a framed original print by the artist and a signed copy of "Ever After."

[Editor’s Outline]
In Narahashi’s previous photobook, half awake and half asleep in the water, (published in 2007 by Nazraeli Press, Portland), Martin Parr described how “water” and “land” have served as two major elements in the history of landscape photography. In his essay, Parr wrote about Narahashi’s photographs of the water’s edge as follows: “Yet I have never seen these two components put together in such a compelling way.” And, “… this work shows so well photography’s ability to challenge our lazy ways of looking.” We usually look at and perceive the boundary between sea and shore from the stable state of the land. However, the images of water’s edge captured by Asako Narahashi reverse our usual perception. They bring us the amazement of this reversed vision and the sense of being suspended in midair.

The images of water’s indeterminate and ever changing form in Ever After, over which we see the mountains and buildings, were photographed in Japan, Dubai, Amsterdam, the suburbs of Paris, Santa Monica, Taipei, and other places between 2002 and 2011. Although they have recorded the reality of each sight, sometimes the water becomes something beyond water, the mountains and buildings become something beyond their usual forms. These images touch the boundary of consciousness and unconsciousness through photography. Being on the water’s edge, we feel both comfort and anxiety at the same time.

This collection also includes photographs taken on land that have been developed in parallel with the water photographs. The unique sense of distance and instability found in Narahashi’s land photography resonate well with her water photography. The insert booklet, with a 6,500 word artist’s interview, offers us insight into Narahashi’s thoughts on photography and the development of her work until now.

[Author’s Profile]
Asako Narahashi. Born in Tokyo in 1959. Graduated from the Faculty of Literature, Waseda University, Tokyo. Began her career as a photographer after participating in the Daido Moriyama’s workshop. Had her first solo exhibition, “Dawn in Spring” in 1989. In 1990, she opened a gallery, 03 FOTOS, as a space to present her own work, where she had a serial exhibition of b/w photographs, “NU-E” from 1992 to 1997. Published her first photobook, NU-E, in 1997. Published the photobook, Funiculi Funicula, in color, in 2003. After publishing her third photobook, half awake and half asleep in the water, (Nazraeli Press, Portland, 2007), she had solo exhibitions with this series of water images at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York, Galerie Priska Pasquer in Cologne, GunGallery in Stockhlom and Ilan Engel Gallery in Paris. In 2009, she had a solo exhibition, “Coming Closer and Getting Further Away: Asako Narahashi 2009/1989” at Tokyo Art Museum, Tokyo. The exhibition was later held at RoseGallery in Santa Monica and Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen in Amsterdam. In 2012 in fall, she had two exhibitions in Tokyo, “Seen When Too Far Away” at photographers’ gallery and “In the Plural” at Zeit Foto Salon. Her works are now on view in the exhibition, “A Sense of Place” at Pier 24 Photography in San Francisco.

Lives and works in Tokyo.