uchi (amongst) Ed. 1 of 1

うち uchi in Japanese translates to "amongst" - this work explores being nestled within nature and is inspired by the connection between nature and humans as central to our way of being in the world. This work was exhibited as part of the VOID exhibition in 2025-26.

The most common Japanese translation for (Kū), when referring to the pronunciation "くう," is 空 (kū), which can mean "sky," "emptiness," or "void". Following the writing of Japanese philosopher Watsuji, "ku" (空), or emptiness, is not a void but a dynamic space of "betweenness" and "negation". It is a space for exploring ethical engagement and authentic individuality. He asks how we can become responsible individuals within a community, how we can become active within the spaces between ourselves and people around us, as well as nature, the environment and our world.

Void invites all into a shared space of connection, of new potentialities, of many shared perspectives that come from a creation of a safe space to just be, experience, and re-connect.

This work is printed on hand made Awagami lace rice papers from Japan and hand printed by the artist. The work is suspended within a brass round frame with invisible thread (no glass) and is hung with invisible thread to enable the piece to float on the wall. The print is highly textured with raw edges that expose the paper fibres.

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As a photography based contemporary artist, Hoffrichter is a research led practitioner working in experimental installation and interdisciplinary media. Her work often inextricably involves the viewer as an active participant in order to challenge the dominant power dynamics of spectatorship and traces lineages which tangle our contemporary realities. Drawing on surrealist strategies and phenomenological philosophy, she renders the familiar unfamiliar, revealing new perspectives on landscapes, gestures, and rituals that structure everyday life. Symbolism drawn from nature—plants, phenomena, and recurring motifs of red as distress or protection—anchors her exploration of the ‘unseen’. Her projects navigate inner and outer worlds, from “natural” to constructed environments, while considering the colonial legacies and cultural mythologies that frame them.

A sustained interrogation of identity, ethics, and power underpins her work. Collaborative projects explore dual perspectives, while Lacan’s theories of the gaze inform her approach to destabilising spectatorship. Many works “look back” at audiences, unsettling the one-way dynamics of viewing and questioning complicity embedded in acts of looking. Photography itself becomes a site of ethical inquiry: the politics of representation, responsibility, and image-making. Through research-led projects, Hoffrichter situates her practice within discourses of decolonisation, feminist critique, and environmental ethics, informed by writers such as Sara Ahmed, Susan Sontag, and Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Her works invite audiences to slow down, attend, and reorient—to reconsider what is within reach, what is excluded, and how our ways of seeing shape the worlds we collectively create.
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Her practice is highly experimental and often challenges the limitations of materials or technologies. While her practice is deeply influenced by the traditions of photography, her work extends into multimedia installations where specific objects hold significance in the work and often relies on the participation of a viewer.

Each work is hand crafted with time and care by the artist.