Japan
lives in Fès (Morocco) and Tokyo (Japan).
Megumi Matsubara’s multidisciplinary work researches the connections between intellectual perception, physical sensitivity, and the transmission of knowledge through what the artist regards as her main medium: space.
Weaving together various media including photography, sound, light, text and performances, Matsubara’s practice spans from ephemeral situations to static architecture. These works are inserted into existing environments so as to reconfigure them, achieving an exquisite balance between presence and absence. Each pursuit elicits a distinctive spatial awareness, making it seem as if dreams and mental images are superimposed in a visual realm.
Matsubara’s recent work includes “Un coquelicot,” a photographic installation comprised of numerous portraits of red poppies presented at the 21st DOMANI at the National Art Center, Tokyo, Spring 2019; “Fossil of Contact,” a series of ceramic works commissioned by Aichi Triennale 2016 (Japan); a series of bronze sculptures cast from clay objects formed by blind students in Morocco and Egypt “A proposal for a textbook to learn Braille, English, and other languages,” exhibited at Fonderia Artistica Battaglia Milano (Italy, 2015), La Graineterie – Centre d’art municipal (France, 2018), besides Aichi Triennale (Japan) and Marrakech Biennale (Morocco) in 2016; an olfactory installation “Undress” realised upon commission by Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen for Carrefour/Treffpunkt exhibition at ifa-Galerie Stuttgart/Berlin (Germany, 2015).
Likewise, Matsubara’s work presented in the domain of architecture are “House of 33 Years” (Nara, Japan, 2013) and “It Is a Garden” (Nagano, Japan, 2016) among others, through ASSISTANT; interdisciplinary architecture firm co-founded with Hiroi Ariyama in 2002.
Since 2012, Megumi Matsubara lives in Fès (Morocco) and Tokyo (Japan).