‘When travelling to Japan, I knew that I wanted to photograph the Yokai — the monsters of Japanese legend, but above all I was open to the experience. Photography came as the result of working in new surroundings; it was the end process of meeting people and building relationships — this is surely why so many of the pictures (and the intimate ones in particular) are of my friends or the people who trusted me — of humane people. The non-human world is more than a background or visual ller; it is of equal importance. I understood that what interested me most here was nature whatever is subject to biological, chemical, and physical processes — whatever exists, grows old, and decays. This series enquires about the whole — how unful lled we feel and how we seek a way out. This was the origin of Subterranean River.’

Lukasz Rusznica