Cintia Tortosa Santisteban, Screenshots from a series of videos about a rice field and its surroundings, 2025

A striking collection of still frames from Spanish artist Cintia Tortosa Santisteban’s daily video recordings, capturing the life of a rice field and its visitors—observed from the fifth floor of her balcony in Japan.

Everyday, Cintia Tortosa Santisteban films from the balcony of her small fifth-floor Japanese apartment—it’s like a ritual. Below, a rice field unfolds along with the comings and goings of passersby, farmers, and children. On foot, by bike, or by car. Cintia observes this daily life as though it were a series, made up of fleeting and unique moments that reveal the hidden details of days that follow one another without ever being the same.

Since 2021, Cintia has been collecting videos of this landscape she watches over. From these recordings, she has created still frames that capture the changing seasons, shifting colours, and recurring figures who pass along the rice field—figures you think you recognize without knowing their stories.

Screenshots from a series of videos about a rice field and its surroundings, Cintia Tortosa Santisteban’s first book, features around a hundred images selected from an archive of over a thousand videos. It offers a small window into the theater of everyday life.