Life is a process of eternal becoming’. These words by Simone de Beauvoir perfectly voice Lansink’s inner thoughts about life and identity. Lansink wonders why we humans often fear the unknown or change. To her ‘it seems only wise to accept that we and the world around us will be continuously different. And yet, we humans seem to refuse this simple notion.’

With her newest series ‘Friction’, that can be seen as a sequel of ‘Body Maps’, Lansink calls for an embrace of the unavoidable change and impermanence of life. She has photographed professional ballet dansers who had to retire at the age of 35 and the rough nature of Death Vally in California where time and therefore age seemingly plays no role. With subsequently connecting the two, she encourages us to flow with the ever-changing world. Lansink believes that ‘in change beauty is to be found. Beauty to rekindle our thoughts, our ideas, our (human) connections, our society, our bond with Nature and most importantly our ‘self’.‘

EDITIONS
Collages Friction: 5/2AP
All others: 7/2AP

Borders of Nothingness - On the Mend is about bridging the old with the new, re-connecting the global and local, and, on the personal note, about the revival of the intimate mother-daughter relationship. In 2019, this series was awarded the inter-nationally prestigious Hariban Award from the Japanese Benrido Atelier, which remains to be one of the very last ateliers in the world that still uses the old printing technology of Collotype. Collotype is a printing process back from 1856 that allows for exceptional depth and degree of detail in the image.
In addition to a two-week residency in Kyoto, part of this prize is the execution of the artist’s prints by Master printer Osamu Yamamoto of Benrido Atelier. Thanks to the 40 years of experience of this ‘print master’, Lansink’s contemporary images of human (re-)connection are linked to unique old-school reproductions of unprecedented quality.
The series as such is an ode to the resilience of the human connection despite what might occur in time. Whilst being in the artist residence in Japan, Lansink used her camera to cope with the suspended contact with her daughter back home. After some years, when it got to be slowly restored, Lansink looked back at those images, ripped them apart and rearran-ged them in collages of new memories. These collages she reworked with gold leaf following the philosophy of Kintsugi, a Japanese art form in which broken ceramic pieces are reconnected together with the use of gold. Not to hide the ‘scars’, but to symbolize the power of healing.

EDITIONS
Collages: 3/2AP
Collotypes: 5/0AP prepared by Margaret Lansink, 2/0AP master printer Osama Yamamoto

In the past period of the Covid-19 pandemic, every human being had to redefine the space in which they lived, worked and interacted. Giving much of us the feeling of being separated as well as being closed off. In the West, we look at space as creating boundaries, as lines defining edges or borders. What would happen if we could embrace Ma; the Japanese concept of viewing space as a pause in time, as an interval or emptiness? Isn’t it also the silence between the notes that make the music…
In 2019, after my residency at Benrido’s Collotype Atelier in Kyoto, I spend another 10 days in Hokkaido around Lake Kussharo, the home grounds for the Ainu people (the indigenous tribe of Japan). The beauty of nature, as well as the tranquillity and space of the landscape, completely overwhelmed me. This had to be ‘Ma’, the pause in time.
One can only be inspired by the power of the concept of Ma. It is the nothingness in these landscapes that enables Ma to speak to you. To wander away from the direct visual impression and to fill the emptiness with your own thoughts and ideas.
In this series my images strive to bring openness to the feeling of being closed off, to illustrate that space entails a promise of growth, of happiness, of energy in search of new horizons. A stark reminder that what isn’t there actually provides the ability for everyone’s story to be created. It is those boundaries of space that allow us and all of our ideas, hopes and dreams to come into existence.

EDITION:
Prints: 7/2AP

In the infinite flow of everything, people come and go in our lives. While the presence of some can be so subtle that we hardly register when it begins or ends, with others it’s far clearer: they enter, or leave, with a bang.
In this series of black and white images, Dutch
photographer Margaret Lansink (b. 1961) dwells in the emotional state of transition between knowing and not knowing another person. In reaction to her daughter’s decision to suspend contact with her, Lansink uses the camera to feel out the sense of severing a connection. She photographs landscapes and nude women, often rendered mysterious or unreadable, seemingly asking: is this the moment you were gone? Borders of Nothingness raises heavy questions regarding the presence and absence of others in our lives, engaging with our sense of loss as well as the everyday miracle of making the acquaintance of another. (Katherine Oktober Matthews Feb.2018).

EDITIONS
Prints: 10/2AP
Toyota: 10/0AP

Synopsis
The skin does not lie: it’s a person’s age map; it’s the paper where his choices, failures, passions, fears are written on. The body defines ourselves, it stratifies and heals passing of time under veils, blankets and hidings. As the trunk to the trees.
As the paper to the book: it changes, it is crumpled or turns thin and transparent, defining - thanks to Ingrid De Kok’s words - the map of a weathered body.
Take it, trace it, map it
Remember
In every phase of life, the essence is different. But what is the essence of life when you grow older? When you pass a certain age which seems to be a signal for society to move you to its fringes? At the same time, you still have the desire to be seen, to be recognized by that same society. For what you are. For who you are.
Do you hide your real age (if needed by cosmetic interventions), do you accept or do you even fight these (unwritten) rules of society. Body maps is Lansink’s visual interpretation of this ambivalence showing compassion for women in this later stage of life. When aging and the visible traces of life are evident. Do you hide these traces and scars or do you show and cherish them as memories of life?
Lansink interconnects these very feminine images with a close-up of traces from Mother Nature where human intervention has left a deep impact. Contemplating if we better not intervene with these natural processes of aging but instead show respect and embrace its outcome.

EDITIONS
Painting/triptych: 5/2AP
All others: 7/2AP

Every moment contains multiple possibilities, though sometimes we cannot feel it. Small decisions, small gestures, and small actions ripple outwards from our bodies into the lives of others, collapsing the many possibilities into the determination of reality. With a casual and careless stroke, we can crush the spirit of another in passing without any awareness of having done so. Equally, we can unknowingly radiate to others the inspiration and joy to live another day. Our deepest acts of both cruelty and kindness may in fact be invisible to us.
In The Kindness of One, photographer Margaret Lansink and poet Rene van Hulst contemplate the great potential within a single person’s act of kindness. The couple were inspired by events in 1940, during World War II, in which thousands of Jewish people were trapped in Kaunas, Lithuania between the advancing German troops and the Russian army taking over the Baltic states. On July 24th, the Dutch counsel in Kaunas, Jan Zwartendijk, took personal action and, even though he did not know the Jewish refugees, began to issue visas. In only two weeks, he issued 2,345 visas and saved the lives of more than 6,000 people. The Japanese counsel of Kaunas, Sugihara, likewise issued visas that enabled the people to travel through Russia and reach Japan by boat.
Compared to the scale of history, most days in modern life are banal, filled with administrative tasks like checking email, doing office work, and running household errands. Yet what is a visa but some small piece of administration?
In her black and white images, Lansink traces the feeling of everyday saviours like Zwartendijk through an intuitive view of Kaunas and Japan. She mixes scenes from ordinary daily life with shots of blurred confusion, and layered scenes with reflections that hold us apart from what we see. In his series of short poems, van Hulst muses on the potential of our human existence: we are all afraid and alone, together. In combination, the photographs and words dwell in the possibility of any given moment for a person to choose fear, apathy, and anger, or to choose compassion and kindness. Gently, they urge for kindness.

Katherine Oktober Matthews