ARTIST TALK
Galerie Springer Berlin Looks Like Abstraction
Art historian & Curator, Marit Lena Herrmann + Natsoumi
Marit Herrmann (Herrmann):
Thank you for joining us today. I have spent the past week preparing for this talk, and I have been greatly looking forward to discussing your work. I would like to structure our conversation by moving from the figurative towards the abstract. I understand this body of work took ten years to complete. Could you tell us about your initial approach? What was that first moment of inception?
Natsoumi:
The birth of my daughter about a decade ago was a major turning point. The resulting constraints—the inability to travel far—profoundly shifted my practice. Before I married, I lived in Paris, working as an editor for design magazines. It was a bohemian lifestyle; I travelled across Europe, engaging with designers and creators. Transitioning from that to the harsh, cold climate of Tohoku following my marriage was a stark contrast. My new challenge became exploring how far I could push my creative boundaries within the very limited radius I could walk with my young daughter.
Herrmann:
The works exhibited here capture subjects found within that walking distance. What, specifically, are we looking at?
Natsoumi:
These are electricity poles—there are said to be some 360,000 of them in Japan. Many are fitted with black-and-yellow reflective plates for visibility. Over time, exposure to sunlight, wind, and the extreme fluctuations of the Tohoku climate causes the paint to fade and peel, revealing the raw aluminium beneath. Not every plate weathers this way, but a few caught my eye where the metal had become completely exposed. It was actually my daughter who first noticed this transformation. These plates are installed at a child’s eye level rather than an adult’s. She found the gradual shift in colour and texture fascinating, and as I agreed with her vision, I began to photograph them. It is a world that only became visible to me because of the physical limitations of my daily life. Since I shoot entirely outdoors, I have to be there at a specific time in the morning when the light hits just right. Whether I was mid-laundry or busy with housework, the fact that I could reach these spots instantly allowed me to capture something I believe no one else could.
Herrmann :
So, motherhood defined your physical parameters, while the fleeting morning light provided a temporal constraint. It is a fascinating background. You mentioned this series evolved over nine years; previously you worked with gelatin silver prints, but for this exhibition, you have chosen to print on Echizen Washi (Japanese handmade paper). Do you feel this shift brought the project to fruition?
Natsoumi:
Yes, I do. Initially, I used gelatin silver prints, but I felt I couldn’t fully break away from the aesthetic of my previous series, TOKϴYO. The gallery owner pointed this out as well, which prompted me to change my methodology. Printing on washi requires a deep understanding of its material properties. When my child was very young and required constant care, I knew I couldn’t undertake massive projects, so I decided to study hyogu (表具), the traditional craft of mounting and framing. Every Saturday morning, I visited a master mounter in Sendai, bringing my toddler along. I learned to back paper and create hanging scrolls. This deepened my intimacy with the medium.
For this exhibition, I used a technique called kuisaki (喰い裂き), feathered edges, where the paper is torn rather than cut. In standard framing, there is a sharp, angular gap between the print and the frame. By using the soft, textured edges of kuisaki, a natural “lingering memory,” yoin (余韻), is created between the image and the margin. We are here in Berlin in mid-September, and the city is full of honeybees. Bees possess remarkable memory and learning abilities; they map the location of hives, the scent and colour of flowers, and the precise timing of when they bloom. They lose themselves in the singular task of revisiting those points. In the same way, I became like a bee—mindless, selfless, losing my “self” as I obsessively photographed this limited world known only to me.
Herrmann:
I read in a text that you experienced a moment of “becoming one” with your subject. Could you elaborate on that?
Natsoumi:
It happened while I was capturing the sun rising and reflecting off the exposed metal. In that moment, the light before my eyes felt as though it had integrated with my own being. It was a complete dissolution of the boundary between myself and the object.
Herrmann: These images are sublime, yet they depict something as utilitarian as an electricity pole. These are so ubiquitous in the Japanese landscape that they are often ignored, yet they “draw lines” through the scenery. I believe you compare this to the role of a mother. Could you explain the “invisible” aspect of this?
Natsoumi:
One winter, exhausted by the daily grind of childcare, I looked at my hands and saw they were terribly cracked and weathered. They were painful to even look at. In Tohoku, the cold is so biting it affects your face and skin the same way. As I mentioned, my daughter first noticed the plates when she was two or three, stopping at every single pole on our way to nursery. These poles provide the essential infrastructure of electricity, yet they stand exposed to the elements, decaying unnoticed. People take the power they provide for granted. At the time, if I was lying down exhausted or unwell, my husband totally underestimated the challenges of parenting and said things like, “I work hard out there, and taking care of the baby seems like a breeze.” There was a deep frustration in having my domestic labour and childcare taken for granted. I saw myself in those electricity poles—unseen, weathered, yet holding everything up. I felt a profound identification with them.
Herrmann:
That is a poignant perspective. The maternal role carries such heavy societal expectations and duties. Just as the pole develops cracks through its service, something “beyond” emerges from those fissures. It feels like a metamorphosis—a larva becoming a butterfly—which seems to underpin your work. The title of this series is the French word UBIQUITÉ. Could you speak to that?
Natsoumi:
Ubiquité means “to exist in many places simultaneously,” but it also carries the theological connotation of “divine omnipresence.” To me, those black-and-yellow plates represent the labels and roles modern society imposes on women. Under the pressure of “you must be this” or “you must perform this role,” a woman endures trials and exposure to the elements. Yet, within that, she seeks her own way of being, redefining herself to live freely. Being unable to travel far does not mean a lack of freedom. Even within a confined space, one can break new ground. I shot this series with the determination to forge my own path. This is why each work is titled Déconstruction. As a side note, in Japanese mythology, the most important sun deity is Amaterasu Omikami. We believe deities reside in trees, and, interestingly, the counter used for both gods and electricity poles in Japanese is hashira (pillar).
Herrmann:
By embracing limitations and using them constructively, you have carved out a new world. In our previous conversation, you spoke of moments when you feel a profound communion with your subject—moments of stillness—and you linked this to Nishida Kitaro’s concept of “pure experience.” Could you elaborate on this for us?
Natsoumi:
“Pure experience” is often categorised into several forms, but there are four primary aspects. The first is the undifferentiated consciousness of early childhood, where the self and the other are not yet distinct. The second—which Nishida describes as “the instant of seeing a colour or hearing a sound”—is the experience of becoming one with an object, such as a beautiful piece of music or a flower. The third is the state where, through rigorous discipline, the body moves instinctively, allowing one to surrender to the act of creation or performance—often experienced by athletes and musicians. The final aspect is what we call “intellectual intuition,” which is possessed by artists and religious thinkers. It is the cognitive ability to grasp the essence of things directly, without the mediation of the senses or logical demonstration. I believe the act of photography is a pursuit of this pure experience; it is the moment of becoming one with the subject, operating the camera with an embodied intuition that has become second nature.
Herrmann:
Do you hope that those who view your work will also undergo a “pure experience”? For instance, if such an experience is a pre-reflective moment of “seeing” or “encountering” before thought intervenes, is it your wish for the viewer to experience a sense of unity with the work?
Natsoumi:
Precisely. My hope is for the viewer to encounter that breathtaking instant that exists before it is ever translated into words. To borrow an analogy from childhood, “pure experience” is that sudden spark of wonder when a child discovers a mere pebble, a glass marble, or even a piece of discarded scrap and gasps, “Oh!”
Just the other day, my daughter and I happened upon a trail of ants. We found ourselves completely identifying with them, losing all sense of time as we watched, enthralled, as they carried their prey back to the nest. It was a moment of total assimilation between ourselves and the natural world. Because I always have my camera at hand, I am able to crystallise these fleeting, everyday moments of grace into a photographic form.
Herrmann:
By embracing limitations and using them constructively, you have carved out a new world. In our previous conversation, you spoke of moments when you feel a profound communion with your subject—moments of stillness—and you linked this to Nishida Kitaro’s concept of “pure experience.” Could you elaborate on this for us?
Natsoumi:
“Pure experience” is often categorised into several forms, but there are four primary aspects. The first is the undifferentiated consciousness of early childhood, where the self and the other are not yet distinct. The second—which Nishida describes as “the instant of seeing a colour or hearing a sound”—is the experience of becoming one with an object, such as a beautiful piece of music or a flower. The third is the state where, through rigorous discipline, the body moves instinctively, allowing one to surrender to the act of creation or performance—often experienced by athletes and musicians. The final aspect is what we call “intellectual intuition,” which is possessed by artists and religious thinkers. It is the cognitive ability to grasp the essence of things directly, without the mediation of the senses or logical demonstration. I believe the act of photography is a pursuit of this pure experience; it is the moment of becoming one with the subject, operating the camera with an embodied intuition that has become second nature.
Herrmann:
Do you hope that those who view your work will also undergo a “pure experience”? For instance, if such an experience is a pre-reflective moment of “seeing” or “encountering” before thought intervenes, is it your wish for the viewer to experience a sense of unity with the work?
Natsoumi:
Precisely. My hope is for the viewer to encounter that breathtaking instant that exists before it is ever translated into words. To borrow an analogy from childhood, “pure experience” is that sudden spark of wonder when a child discovers a mere pebble, a glass marble, or even a piece of discarded scrap and gasps, “Oh!”
Just the other day, my daughter and I happened upon a trail of ants. We found ourselves completely identifying with them, losing all sense of time as we watched, enthralled, as they carried their prey back to the nest. It was a moment of total assimilation between ourselves and the natural world. Because I always have my camera at hand, I am able to crystallise these fleeting, everyday moments of grace into a photographic form.
Virginia Woolf Monk's House photograph album, MH-5, 1892-1938 and undated Harvard University Library
Herrmann:
How, specifically, do you find these moments of “arrested wonder” in your subjects?
Natsoumi: It is always the light. I am struck when I discover light within the darkness. While creating this series, I was reading To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, a writer I dearly admire. In the novel, there is a scene where she overlays the character of Mrs. Ramsay with the lighthouse itself. Late at night, after the children are tucked away and the housework is finished, Mrs. Ramsay finally finds a moment of solitude. She sits knitting, looking out the window, and Woolf writes:
Losing personality, one lost the fret, the hurry, the stir; and there rose to her lips always some exclamation of triumph over life when things came together in this peace, this rest, this eternity; and pausing there she looked out to meet that stroke of the Lighthouse, the long steady stroke, the last of the three, which was her stroke, for watching them in this mood always at this hour one could not help attaching oneself to one thing especially of the things one saw; and this thing, the long steady stroke, was her stroke.
Woolf was a keen amateur photographer, and I am convinced that the act of photography itself formed the backbone of her prose. Throughout her work, she employed the “stream of consciousness” to attempt the paradoxical: capturing the preverbal sensation—the thing itself before it becomes a thing—in realistic prose. The passage continues:
Often she found herself sitting and looking, sitting and looking, with her work in her hands until she became the thing she looked at—that light, for example . . . She praised herself in praising the light, without vanity, for she was stern, she was searching, she was beautiful like that light. It was odd, she thought, how if one was alone, one leant to inanimate things; trees, streams, flowers; felt they expressed one; felt they became one; felt they knew one, in a sense were one; felt an irrational tenderness thus (she looked at that long steady light) as for oneself.
I believe what Woolf was articulating here was “pure experience.” It is no coincidence that in my own work, the camera acts as a medium to capture that moment where the self and the subject merge into an indivisible whole.
Herrmann:
I would like to move on to your work Eternal Void—a soft-focus self-portrait of you nursing your young child—and its relationship with the abstract UBIQUITÉ series. Both are printed on the same Echizen Washi and presented in similar heavy, black frames. Could you talk about the connection between them?
Natsoumi:
I used to imagine that once I had a child, I would photograph them with sharp, clear lines. However, the reality was that the distance between my baby and me was so intimate that everything naturally blurred. If I used a timer, I would lose the spontaneity of the moment. Through this trial and error, I realised that these soft-focus, out-of-focus images were something only I could capture. For this exhibition, I chose thick, black frames and allowed the lower edges of the prints to remain loose and raw. Memories are inherently hazy, their edges soft and shifting. I wanted to reflect my desire to express a memory exactly as it feels—not as something rigid, but as something fluid.
Herrmann:
The way the works seem to float and move within the exhibition is quite beautiful. Eternal Void is subtitled “Self-Portrait”—would you say the electricity pole series is also a self-portrait?
Natsoumi:
Yes, absolutely.
Herrmann:
And does that apply to the blue landscape, À L’AURORE BLEUTÉE (Daybreak), as well?
À L’AURORE BLEUTÉE（東雲） © NATSOUMI photo : Maria Jauregui Ponte
Natsoumi:
Yes. To me, the colour blue resonates with the maternal psyche. Blue is the colour of happiness and trust, often seen at weddings, yet it also carries an undertone of loneliness and instability. Furthermore, our blue planet is called “Mother Earth.” As a colour that simultaneously signifies trust and anxiety, blue mirrors my own state of mind as I raise my child.
Herrmann:
A duality, then. This idea of the blue Earth also seems to connect back to the word Ubiquité.
Natsoumi:
In our daily lives, we often forget that we inhabit a blue planet; we become preoccupied with our limited surroundings and routine. Yet, in reality, we exist upon a star enveloped in blue. This is something I wanted to convey.
Herrmann:
It seems you are on a meditative journey—finding the extraordinary within the mundane, forging a path within constraints, and discovering “pure experience” in the everyday. You have mentioned that for you, as a photographer and artist, creating is akin to keeping a diary. Could you tell us more about that?
Natsoumi:
For me, creation is not necessarily predicated on showing my work to others; rather, I take photographs as one might record daily events in a journal. Photography is not about showing for me; it is about telling. I feel incredibly fortunate that these records of my personal “pure experience” are displayed in the main hall of this gallery, but even if they weren’t, the act of facing the work itself brings me contentment. Recording what happened in my day and how I lived through my photographs allows me to confront my true self—the one that exists behind the facade of social media. This is where my creative practice resides.
Herrmann:
And yet, these works that began as a personal diary are now hanging on these walls. How do you feel, seeing them here in the gallery?
Natsoumi:
When I was taking these photos, I never imagined they would be part of a group exhibition at Galerie Springer Berlin. I am, quite simply, astonished.
Herrmann: Natsoumi, do you have any final thoughts you would like to share?
Natsoumi:
I create every day as if I am writing a diary, and the act of printing on paper feels like entrusting my thoughts to its surface. Unlike digital images on the internet, photography allows me to capture only what is truly vital to me within a confined space. In that sense, I am saved by photography every single day.
Marit Lena Herrmann
Art historian, researcher, and curator at FOTO ARSENAL WIEN, Vienna, with a strong focus on queer and feminist visual practices. She studied art, and visual culture at Humboldt University in Berlin and in Vienna and has collaborated on exhibition and publication projects with diverse institutions including Ostkreuz Agency and the renowned publisher Spector Books in Leipzig. In 2023, they co-led the master class of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation alongside Ute Mahler and curated the accompanying exhibition at the Goethe-Institut in Paris. Most recently, she curated the main exhibition Ein Dorf / A Village for the Academy of Arts (AdK) as part of EMOP 2025, and Michelle Piergoelam. Across the Water and Daido Moriyama. A Retrospective together with Thyago Nogueira, both opened in January 2026.