Backstitch Residency 2025

Yoko Murakami

ARTIST BIO

Yoko Murakami (she/her) is a Tokyo-born and New York City-based artist. Yoko creates movement-based work in forms of site-specific installations and experimental film. She enjoys creating works for spaces that are not traditionally designed for performance and is interested in finding new ways to activate and question the way we interact with our environments. She has presented her creations in spaces like Mabou Mines (New York, NY), Ace Hotel (New York, NY), Triskelion Arts (Brooklyn, NY), TheaterLab (New York, NY), Da Da Da Gallery (Seattle, WA), Eshk Salon / Room Salon (Brooklyn, NY), and Aileyan Accessories (Brooklyn, NY). Her new venture into experimental film has led to her works being selected and screened in festivals in Seoul, Moscow, Naples, Belfort, Cyprus, Mexico City, and Lincoln Center in NYC, just in 2022.

Artist website: yokoteki.com

ARTIST STATEMENT

“As a movement artist with a background in visual arts and a professional career in jewelry design, I have been cultivating a cross-disciplinary practice that allows the human body to be the medium of the art but not necessarily the sole focus. My creations find the surreal in the mundane, where ordinary and simple set-ups are questioned with the play of perspective, abstraction and distortion. The eye of the audience is a crucial component of my work- they are encouraged to actively participate in questioning and deciphering, as well as just surrendering to the sensory experience. I believe that the human presence can evoke a sense of curiosity and empathy, acting as a bridge between the artwork and the audience. Taking away the boundaries and hierarchies that divide the world of performance art and visual art, I seek to find a more fluid and interactive -hence expansive- process in creation.”

ABOUT THE WORK

Point ____ (Blank) is an ambitious 3-part genre-melding project that explores and pushes the intersection between movement art and film installation, technology and wearable arts.

Point (in Time) is part film/photography installation, movement workshop, and performance. The project will delve deeper into Yoko’s research in activating the image- through a public workshop open to people of all backgrounds. The workshop will offer a safe and inspiring environment to interact with both the still and moving image, and the culmination of the process will be shared in an informal showing. The workshop and showing will be accompanied by live music.

Point (!blac) is a collaboration in technology with Argentinian audiovisual artist Fernando Molina. Based on a short film previously created with Fernando, the residency will explore the live installation version, with a performance in a lab-like setting.

(Tipping) Point is a collaboration in wearable arts, with the millinery studio/shop Aileyan Accessories in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Hats will be designed and created, and a movement installation will be choreographed, where the lines between wearable arts, sculpture and performance art will be blurred. This research will culminate in a live performance.