A journey through Japan, tears and emotional restraint, where absurdity meets intimacy.
32 pages, A4
Romain Mader is a Swiss artist working with
photography, video and installation. His work
stages situations that sit somewhere between
documentary and fiction, often placing himself
at the centre of carefully constructed narratives.
Moving between humour and unease, his projects
revolve around love, loneliness, consumption and
the rituals of everyday life.
His work has been exhibited at Tate Modern,
London; FOAM, Amsterdam; Paris Photo; Photo
Elysée, Lausanne; Helmhaus, Zurich; Coalmine,
Winterthur; Musée d’art de Pully; OCAT Shanghai;
OCAT Shenzhen; Untitled Miami; and Art
Rotterdam.
He holds an MFA from the Zurich University of
the Arts (ZHdK) and a BA in Photography from
ECAL, Lausanne. In 2017 he received the FOAM
Paul Huf Award. His photobooks Ekaterina (2016)
and Get the Look! (2024) were published by
MÖREL, London.
He has participated in residencies including
Cité internationale des arts, Paris; the Academy
of Visual Arts, Hong Kong; and AIR!M at
Ebenböckhaus, Munich, where he developed a new
installation for the Stadtmuseum München in 2025.
The Publication
やるせない (Yarusenai) takes its title from a
Japanese word used for a feeling that is barely
translatable: a quiet sadness with nowhere to go.
The book grew out of the exhibition Only the
Lonely at and follows Mader’s journey to Japan
after realizing he could no longer cry. There, he
attends workshops led by “tear sommeliers,”
where crying is taught, practiced and eventually
certified. The premise is disarmingly absurd, but
the photographs resist turning it into a joke.
Instead, they trace unexpected parallels between
Switzerland and Japan, where emotional restraint
begins to feel less like a cultural difference than
a shared condition. The book never resolves the
contradiction. It stays with it.
