Photography Exhibition

Poetry, Sci-Fi, Flesh, and Spirit

by Tawada Yuki

Exhibition

Artist Talk

Photography as an interface of memories, myth and matter

The Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Hanoi is delighted to present the solo exhibition of Tawada Yuki as part of Photo Hanoi ’25.

Tawada Yuki (born in Hamamatsu, Japan) is a contemporary artist and Professor at Kyoto University of the Arts. Holding a Doctor of Fine Arts from Tokyo University of the Arts and a background in both photography and biological science, she has developed a unique interdisciplinary practice that bridges science, art, and spirituality. Her works have been featured in major international exhibitions such as Les Rencontres d’Arles and are included in the collections of institutions including the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art.

Tawada’s practice blurs the boundaries between photography, painting, and sculpture. Rather than capturing moments, she transforms photographs into tangible objects filled with emotion, texture, and time. Her works question what it means to “see,” urging viewers to look beyond the surface of an image and feel the quiet presence that lies within it. In some works, photographs taken in Hanoi during her field research this year are incorporated, adding layers of local context and narrative to her evolving mythic structures.

In a world saturated with digital imagery, Tawada’s work offers a deeply sensory experience rooted in touch, memory, and the invisible connection between people and images. Drawing inspiration from sympathetic magic and therapeutic rituals, she explores how images can hold emotion, heal memory, and restore our relationship with the physical world.

Her artworks, often intimate and introspective, reflect on our relationship with photography in an age when images are easily produced and quickly forgotten. By giving new form and weight to photographs, Tawada creates a contemplative space where images become living presences, resonating with the viewer’s own sense of memory and feeling.

This exhibition also features collaborative works with renowned ceramic artist Fukumoto Fuku, in which the dialogue between photography and pottery becomes a poetic exploration of memory and materiality.

As part of the exhibition, selected works created during the “Lachrymatory” pottery workshop—held at the ancient Kim Lan Pottery Village in Hanoi with the participation of over 30 Vietnamese youth—will also be presented. In this workshop, participants burned personal photographs, collected the ashes to create glaze, and handcrafted small “tear jars” from clay under the guidance of Tawada and Fukumoto. These emotionally charged pieces extend Tawada’s exploration of transformation and remembrance, linking individual memory with shared material experience.

Above all, this exhibition is an invitation to rediscover the materiality of photography and its power to communicate the invisible and the unspoken.

■ For inquiries on the program, please contact at:

Ms. Ngoc 024-3944-7419 (ext: 113) / Mr. Osuka (076-606-0858)

The Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam

27 Quang Trung, Cua Nam Ward, Hanoi, Vietnam                           TEL: 024-3944-7419

https://www.facebook.com/japanfoundation.vietnam/                  https://hn.jpf.go.jp/

■ Credits

Organized by: The Japan Foundation Center for Cultural Exchange in Vietnam

As part of Photo Hanoi ’25 held by French Institute in Vietnam and the Hanoi Department of Culture and Sports

■ Artist Profile

Tawada Yuki (born in 1978, Hamamatsu) is an artist who holds a Doctor of Fine Arts (DFA), a Bachelor’s degree in Photography, and a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Science. She is also a Professor at Kyoto University of the Arts. After graduating from the Department of Applied Biological Chemistry at Tohoku University in 2003 with a focus on biotechnology, she went on to study at the Camberwell College of Arts in London, where she graduated from the Department of Photography in 2005. In 2011, she completed her doctoral studies in the Department of Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts. Her work revolves around themes of spiritual healing systems for humans, employing a unique approach to production.

Tawada’s practice involves techniques such as scraping or burning the surface of photographs to emphasize their materiality, in an attempt to reclaim the aura and magical power inherent in them. Her works are based on research into art therapy and folk beliefs, producing a body of work that transcends the boundaries of photography, painting, and sculpture.

Additionally, Tawada explores how photographs, as material objects, interact with human beings, weaving traces and networks through collaborative projects and workshops with her mother and other participants. She brings to the surface the invisible relationships and chains of connections that these interactions create. In her artist unit with ceramic artist Fuku Fukumoto, she further pursues new forms of expression, such as transferring photographic images onto ceramics and creating glazes from photographic ash.

Born in 1978 in Hamamatsu, Japan
2003 Graduated from Tohoku University, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Applied Biochemistry, Major in Biotechnology
Exchange Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (2001–2002)
2005 Graduated from Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London, Department of Photography
2008 Completed Master’s Program in Inter Media Art, Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts
2011 Completed Doctoral Program in Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts

Selected Exhibitions (Recent)

• I’M SO HAPPY YOU ARE HERE: Japanese Women Photographers, Les Rencontres d’Arles (FR, 2024), Fotomuseum Den Haag (NL), Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (DE, 2025)
• Scent of the Sky (with Fuku Fukumoto), Sokyo Gallery, Kyoto, 2025
• Sleep, My Good Child / Where Good Child Sleeps, Kanagawa Kenmin Hall Gallery, Yokohama, 2024
• THE SHIP WHO SANG (solo), KURENBOH, Tokyo, 2023
• Seeing as though touching, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2022
• The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2020
• Exorcism / Family Tree / Neuron, Forest, G/P gallery, Tokyo, 2018
• NEW PLANET PHOTO CITY, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, Tokyo, 2018
• Burnt Photographs, TARO NASU, Tokyo, 2012
• VOCA – The Vision of Contemporary Art, The Ueno Royal Museum, Tokyo, 2010

Awards

• 2008 Salon de Plantan Award (Tokyo University of the Arts)
• 2008 Shortlisted, BMW–Paris Photo Prize, Carrousel du Louvre, Paris

Collections

• Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art
• Tokyo Photographic Art Museum
• Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Jury

• Tokyo Frontline Photo Award (2020–2025)

■ Images for PR and references

Remarks: For the usage of the following images for your media, please kindly put the credit and information as below, and please get the original size of the images at (PR kit)

blue on blue

Photo by Yuji Imamura

Family Ritual

Photo by Hikari Okawara

 I am in You

Installation view of Seeing as though touching: Contemporary Japanese Photography vol.19

Courtesy of Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

Photo: INOUE Sayuki

Lachrymatory

Photo by Junji Kumano

the ship who sang 

Photo by Yuji Imamura

the girl who was plugged in

Photo by Yuji Imamura