Where Worlds Meet

I am an Ainu multidisciplinary artist, scholar, curator, and cultural consultant working across contemporary art, Indigenous knowledge, research, and community engagement. Originally from Japan and now based in Norway, my practice moves between places, disciplines, cultures, and ways of knowing.

My artistic journey began through Ainu performing arts, first as a member of the Association of Rera in Tokyo and later through artistic training at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Canada. These experiences continue to shape the way I use the body as a medium for carrying, remembering, and translating cultural knowledge.

My work spans dance, film, animation, installation, visual art, performance, and socially engaged practice. I often explore identity, cultural memory, home, diaspora, belonging, and the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and contemporary life. Art and academia are deeply interconnected in my practice: research, lived experience, cultural knowledge, and creative expression continually inform one another.

I am also the founder of AinuToday, an Ainu-led platform connecting Ainu artists, researchers, and knowledge holders with wider international audiences. Alongside my own artistic practice, I work across curation, museums, research, cultural consultation, and commissioned projects, creating opportunities for Indigenous knowledge and contemporary creativity to enter new spaces and conversations.

At the heart of my practice is a continuing question: How can we carry culture forward while creating something new? My work is grounded in Ainu perspectives while remaining open to encounters with other cultures, histories, people, and contemporary worlds.

Photo©️Simona Zollet, Hokkaido, Japan

Photo©️Susan Dine, London, UK

Photo©️Simona Zollet, Hokkkaido Japan

Photo©️Susan Dine, British Museum, London, UK

Photo©️Dan Mariner, TEMPURA Magazine, Paris, France