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Statement by the photographer, Atsuko Murano ABALOS
"In 2019, my main purpose for visiting France was for an event in Paris, but since I had time to visit other cities, I decided to go to visit the Alsace region with my husband. The Alsace region has a rich history and folklore connected to the White Storks. 'Why didn't you come to visit us?'This was the question I wanted to ask the storks as I rode the train from Paris to Alsace. I wanted to go complain to them once I found one. It seems that storks raise their chicks in Europe from Spring until Autumn, and then migrate to the warmer African continent for the Autumn and Winter seasons. I learned this fact when I came to Alsace in the Autumn, only to find all the storks have gone for the winter, and all we could see were their empty nests without its masters.
Seeing the many empty stork nests had a profound impact on me. It was like being thrown at and hit with many ideas and emotions. This might be the mysterious meaning and impact of the word 'empty'. In the Sanskrit language, the word 'empty' is said to be traced to the meaning of 'there is no one in the house.' I could also hold a meaning of 'lacking or the absence of something expected'. In the exploration of the concept of 'empty,' I pondered on the thought that the inside of a camera is also empty space. With the principle of the camera obscura, the inside is a hollow, empty box. When this empty space is opened to a subject, the dark space takes in light. Then the image is projected inside by the light and a photograph is born.
Capturing 'emptiness' is not about nothingness, but the 'lacking or absence of something expected.” Capturing 'emptiness' this way confirms the existence of a bright and wonderful world instead found in these 'empty nests'." (Atsuko Murano ABALOS)