Guilhem LesaffreDes oiseaux - Rinko Kawauchi

“This new series by Rinko Kawauchi celebrates the tenth title in the collection Des oiseaux. The Japanese photographer has focused on the swallows in her neighbourhood of Chiba city in spring, during the birthing season, and particularly on the tiny nests that the birds build in the windows or in the roofs to protect their broods which are fed by their parents for several weeks. Fascinated by this spectacle, with her characteristic poetry and sense of detail, Rinko Kawauchi brings out the marvellous in our daily lives and the ephemeral beauty of suspended moments. The swallows, thanks to their sharp wings, perch everywhere with ease and elegance, bathed in an opalescent light.

This book is part of the Des oiseaux collection, which celebrates, through the eyes of various artists, their immense presence in a world where they are now fragile. The ornithologist Guilhem Lesaffre has written an essay to accompany each photographic corpus. For this book, he looks at the way of life of these swallows, their history, their spring migration from south to north over thousands of kilometres, the birthing season and their particular relationship with man, which has led them to find themselves threatened today.”