NESSIE

Born in 1993, raised in Chiba Prefecture. Nicknamed Nessie. Began making work in 2022. Presenting works that interweave physicality and temporality along the Edogawa River, published the art photobook 'Edogawa' (2025). Made a first appearance at T3 PHOTOBOOK MARCHE 2025. Took part in PARADISE AIR, an artist-in-residence in Matsudo, a town deeply connected to the Edogawa. After studying at the Photo Archipelago photography school, now takes topography as a new subject, and through residency work traveling back and forth along the Kinokawa River in Wakayama Prefecture, creates work that grasps, in multiple layers, the self and the workings of land and people.

'Edogawa' takes an accordion-fold (accordion book) format. Its cover, body, and back cover are separate elements, bound together as one with a stretch cord. It measures approximately 295 × 125 × 25 mm. The edition is a first edition limited to 45 copies. Editioned. This project takes the recording medium of images photographing the beloved Edogawa and, by once physically dismantling and reconstructing them into a photographic collage, expresses the accumulation of time and the wavering of body and mind, distilling it into a form like a book that is not a book. In particular, the binding design — from the selection of materials to its overall presence — was realized through the immense support of the self-publishing label between in between.

Looking back, I think the reason I "go out of my way" to make this book-that-is-not-a-book is that its making process was, for me, a time of composing myself and holding a dialogue with myself. Dismantling the river into images, pasting photographs and paper, folding, pressing plates. In the work of physically reconstructing collage in this way, I sometimes cried, sometimes laughed, and sometimes became empty of thought — it feels as though it was a kind of ritual for carefully sorting through and accepting, one by one, the emotions and memories I carried. I think that back then, the reason I put a little distance between myself and a world that demands efficiency, and deliberately chose the inefficient time of taking pains, was that I wanted to secure my own time — time that could only be fixed in place by doing so.

I am in the midst of slowly opening 'Edogawa' up to people. I have exhibited once before, but after honestly recognizing again that I am not very good at stepping forward on my own to make my work known, I stopped showing it. This time, though, my starting point is the wish that I might, even a little, give a push to the backs of people who carry similar worries. That it is preserved in a physical medium — a book (that is not a book). A space that is less a sales floor than a place of expression. And the place being a temple — I felt this sense might suit the atmosphere of this book fair. By letting 'Edogawa' open of its own accord, I also hope some new realization might arise for the Kinokawa series I am currently working on during my residency.