Special Talk Program Kimsooja × Yoichi Ochiai Between the Body and the World: A Needle Woman and Digital Nature

Event Description

Kimsooja’s work A Needle Woman, presented in this exhibition, explores the relationship between individuals and the world through the image of a motionless body amid the bustle of urban crowds. Yoichi Ochiai advocates the concept of “Digital Nature,” in which digital technology and nature converge, exploring how technology transforms our understanding of the body and the self, while questioning the boundaries between physical and digital realities.

Drawing on their distinct artistic approaches and perspectives, the two artists will reflect on the relationships between the body and others, and between the self and the world. Through a dialogue , they will explore new possibilities for artistic expression and for philosophy beyond words.

Event Overview

Date & Time: Tuesday, November 17, 2026, 3:30–5:00 PM
Venue: ISLE SHINAGAWA
Capacity: 50 participants (advance reservation required)
Admission: ¥1,000 (Includes the TOKYO ATLAS Official Guidebook and a postcard)
Supported by: Sustainable Pavilion 2025 Inc.

Speaker

Kimsooja

Born in Daegu in 1957. Based in Seoul.

Through diverse forms of expression, including painting, sewing, installation, performance, video, light, and sound, Kimsooja explores the totality of life and art beyond distinctions of medium and form.

Her unwavering pursuit of the immaterial, together with her incorporation of “non-doing, non-making” as an aesthetic framework, underpins her longstanding engagement with diverse media and methodologies. This approach sustains her artistic practice, which continually questions the nature of art and human existence through a conceptual and contemplative aesthetic grounded in humanism.

Her major exhibitions include Dimensions of a Needle (Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto [MOCA Toronto], Toronto, Canada, 2026), To Breathe – Mokum (Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2025), To Breathe (He Art Museum [HEM], Foshan/Guangzhou, China, 2025), and To Breathe – Constellation (Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, France, 2024).

Yoichi Ochiai

Born in 1987in Tokyo. Media artist, started working as an artist around 2010.

His work is based on the motifs of materialization, transformation, and the longing for physicality in the Digital Nature.
Professor at the University of Tsukuba, Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo and he has served as a producer of the theme project for Japan EXPO 2025 in Osaka and Kansai.
null²n is set to open at Yokohama Landmark Plaza this autumn.

Commentator: Akira Tatehata （Artistic Director, TOKYO ATLAS）