my mother's mother's mother's mother

installation/ silence video, etching

13. July - 6. October 2024 / OFF THE TIMELINE at Projects pace on the inside, Amsterdam

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My mother's mother's mother's mother,

between giving birth and being born.

The family tree inside me

sounds like footsteps,

echoing through the world,

which doesn't have a surname

no one has ever spoken of.

Jumping in the lake,

I see her face.

Installation view of OFF THE TIMELINE at Projects pace on the inside, Amsterdam

salty water

video installation, video (7 min loop)

FEBRUARY 2024 / RUNDGANG 2024 Kunstakademie Münster

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After staying here a few times, I realized that this place is surrounded by a thin membrane.
I always look into the distance
and the distant view is always blurry.


After becoming aware the membrane, I stopped looking into the far distance and started looking at the membrane.

It is a milky white color sometimes thin and almost transparent and sometimes thick and opaque. And it seems to be moving slowly.

At one point, I bumped into the membrane, but
I could barely feel its touch.
The membrane blended with the temperature of the place, becoming one with the temperature of my skin, and soon became imperceptible.

The membrane was soft and ungraspable. Like the skin on milk.

We were getting so used to the membrane that before we knew it, we became one with it.

Installation view of RUNDGANG 2024 Kunstakademie Münster

the house

video (7 min loop)

2023

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tsuruhashi

video installation, video (7 min loop)

JUNE 2023 / RUNDGANG 2023 Kunstakademie Münster

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video by yuka kawasaki

Installation view of RUNDGANG 2023 Kunstakademie Münster

blue curtain

used medical masks on a field Münster,

2021 / Visionen 21, Havixbeck, Germany

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Medical mask in Germany is now kind of the symbol of this pandemic era. Physical distance leads to psychological isolation. This work is shown as part of exhibition “Visionen 2021 Kunst trifft Schaufenster”.

video by yuka kawasaki

seventyone seventh

video (14 min)

2022

IN MY ROOM

Installation, computer game

JUNE 2022 / RUNDGANG 2022 Kunstakademie Münster

In this computer game, you can explore a room that imitates my own student dorm.

It reflects a time when I couldn't leave my dorm and spent a lot of time dreaming. You'll encounter fragments of my body shown as videos, and snippets of my dreams presented as text.

Installation view of RUNDGANG 2022 Kunstakademie Münster

klasse aernout mik project

speichern im schattigen Raum voll Erde

(Project of Klasse Mik )

Room concept, Performance

JUNE 2022 / RUNDGANG 2022 Kunstakademie Münster

In a class project, I construct a darkened room filled with earth. In the room there were hilly landscapes and the light source came from below, casting shadows of the landscape and visitors onto the walls.

Visitors have the opportunity to sit within the room, allowing them to make direct physical contact with the earth. The earth is soft enough for comfortable seating, with no chairs or tables present, ensuring that all visitors are on the same on the ground. And we reflect on the concept of 'place,' which encompasses notions of identity, nationality, unity, division, and the struggles associated with them.

However, in this context, we do not reference a specific place. The low light source creates an underground ambiance, offering an intimate space. With a substantial mass of earth as a focal point, visitors cannot observe each other, fostering a sense of security.

This unique space has hosted performances and readings by artists we invited from both inside and outside the art academy Münster. Through these special events, this place has transformed into an exchange and meeting space in an extraordinary manner—quieter and more physically engaging.


I did a performance as part of the program, during which I drew a  border line around each visitor using a white thread. They were at the same time assigned categories: "heimlich" and "unheimlich,"  which respectively mean 'familiar' and 'uncanny.' These terms are not antonyms; rather, "unheimlich" is the negative form of "heimlich." Both words contain "heim," which signifies "home" or a sense of belonging. In my opinion, the feeling of the uncanny is deeply connected to discrimination, particularly discrimination against immigrants who do not feel at home.

Visitors received these words randomly by me, an immigrant in Germany. Through this performance, I aimed to make them physically experience fundamental questions such as the meaning of borders, separations, and the significance of various categories.

After the performance these boundaries remainds on the earth.

klasse aernout mik project

Untitled

Installation, drawings

2022 Kunstakademie Münster

A drawing exhibition about the death, night dreams from childhood.

Fragments of text, lyrics, and drawings are displayed in a dedicated room.

saltshaker

2019 ceramics, 40*30*30cm

2022 Kunstakademie Münster

Ceramic built pear shape refers to classical representation of ideal women in Japan. They have white skin like porcelain and pear-shaped face. I made this figure with many holes, like the head of a Barbie doll where artificial hair is implanted. But I left it without hair and instead represented as a saltshaker.

art sujin

big curtain

cloth, iron

FEBRUARY 2017 / Kyoto City University of Arts Exhibition

SHIOKOJI-TAKAKURA CROSSING

When I was little, I heard rumors from time to time of people disappearing from locker rooms. This fictional narrative probably came from collective images of the insecurity of the cubicle, not knowing if someone is inside, and changing in public places. No one else can see the inside, but often the outside is visible from anywhere.

I built a large changing room that has no entrance, in the place where there was social housing in neighborhoods of buraku. Buraku is formerly in Japan residential areas demarcated from the majority population.

This neighborhood was partially rebuilt by gentrification and the houses was demolished without regard to residents.

untitled (division)

Installation, metal, hair extensions, concrete block

Hair is a separation between our body and the outside world. Hair falls out sometime and then men think that it is garbage, although before you have cared for it very much or hair could have been one of the most important body part. I am myself as an Asian, much thought about my black hair after I came in Germany. Whereas black hair is considered rather unfashionable in my home country, here rather almost the only positive feature of Asian woman. I confront in this society various small prejudices. I made with the black hair a space separation, though with this space separation there is no obvious outside and inside.

tateuri

oil on milimater paper

Essentially, a house is inseparable from the existence of people who live inside. Now, however, there are many new houses without inhabitants. In this work images of houses are drawn on fragile graph paper, in sharp contrast with huge expensive structures of real houses. These sheets of paper with oil paintings will eventually oxidize. I tried to draw these ‘boxes’ separated from the surroundings, as increasing items in a catalogue, so that we may hardly guess their real size.

torii

wood, mirror

green nets

nets, display box, plastic pole

DRAWINGS

"The Warmth of a Seat, which has just been left”

Installation, Canvas, Clay, Chair, Oil paint

NOVEMBER 2017 / "The Warmth of a Seat, which has just been left” with Sawa Amo Aico

Ohe Dozoh, Kyoto

artwork neuss sculpture

Untitled

Installation

2018 / Neuss, Germany

Untitled

Installation

2018 / Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto, Japan