mio fujimaki

At our last Open Studios artists at residency presented their work, including research on published imagery on the peninsula, work with natural locally sourced materials, sound, and silenced herstories. 🌿🌿 @deimante_jasiuleviciute @fjmkmo @bindumehrastudio #hannahellul @vilniausdailesakademija

"stiːl" is a project I developed during my residency at @raviliege this summer. The work explores the transformative properties of steel, engaging with the material's inherent tension between industrial durability and organic decay. At the centre of a hand-polished steel sheet, a droplet of saline solution—comparable to human bodily fluids such as blood and tears—rests on the reflective surface. This subtle intervention highlights the human interaction with raw materials: the very hands that mine, purify, and polish the steel are also those that initiate its corrosion upon contact. Corrosion, a process often viewed as deterioration, is also a form of transformation. As metal oxidizes, it generates energy, symbolizing a shift from one state to another. Rust, in this context, is not just a marker of decay but a return to the material's natural and original form. The idea of this piece draws from the landscape of Liège, a city with a rich industrial past. Once a hub of Europe's metal industry and coal mining, have now largely disappeared, leaving behind a complex narrative of industrial rise and decline. "stiːl" reflects on this transformation, echoing the larger story of Liège’s history as it mirrors the rusting steel’s slow return to its origins.

"Circuit Diagram" is a recent project I developed during my residency at @raviliege this past summer. In this work, I collected and dried random plants from the surrounding area, using them to construct a basic electrical circuit diagram on the wall. The plants, affixed with tape, reference the traditional practice of creating herbariums, symbolising humanity's impulse to capture, systematise, and control natural phenomena—such as energy—through the use of diagramsy. The residency's location, which historically functioned as a battery factory, became a significant point of departure for this piece. It extends from a previous body of work (see images 5and 6), in which I explored the intersections of natural and industrial processes. Throughout my time at @raviliege my projects engaged with the cyclical nature of energy, considering themes of decay and the balance between nature and culture.

"Rust Scouting" is one of a project I developed during my residency at @raviliege this summer. It consists of a collection of rust gathered from the terrain around the residency building and its surroundings. Each rust sample shows unique migration patterns on a thin gelatin layer of analogue black-and-white film (in this case, large-format film). The inspiration for working with rust came from the landscape of Liège, with its rich history as a center of Europe’s metal industry and its numerous coal mining sites, both of which have now significantly declined. These industries once brought wealth to the city, but they have since faded away. When metal corrodes, it generates energy. While corrosion marks the decay of metal, it also represents a transformation, a shift in the material's state. Rust, in essence, is metal returning to its natural form. The collected rust patterns are presented in a nostalgic format, reminiscent of an old analogue photo album, complete with thin protective paper layers and photo corners—similar to something you might find in your parents' or grandparents' home🧡💛 Rust Scouting will be shown at the art book fair at @de_meldkamer in November if anyone is interested to see it in real.

This entire summer until last Monday, I was in Liège, BE for an artist residency at @raviliege .
 What an amazing and beautiful time it was! I truly had a great opportunity to focus on my research and practice. It was crucial, much-needed, and incredibly effective and fruitful for the development of my ideas and the practice. Thank you so much to @raviliege for granting me this beautiful time and space. Special thanks to @fannylaixhay for organizing and arranging everything, and to @p.henrion2018 and everyone who were involved and helped make my time being there possible. Thank you to @pliiim @87mosa87 and @estelle_chretien for being amazing companions—it was a pleasure getting to know you. All in all, it was a blast! Also, big applause to @yvesrandaxhe for the beautiful writing about my practice. And of course, thank you to everyone who made a visit to our open atelier on the 28th and 29th of September at Ravi. I enjoyed all the conversations I had there❤

Last Sunday was the final day of the exhibition “Assisting Eyes” at B32 in Maastricht. Thank you for inviting my works to this beautiful exhibition @charlottekoenenworks . Thank you for your help building up @emile.p.hermans and @thmsh____ for the beautiful furniture to support the works! And big applause for the graphic designer @yuri_sato thank you for working with me to develop the “Light Meter” for this occasion. It was a great pleasure to meet you and to know your works @dries_segers and @tanja_engelberts and amazing lecture on Photography of the Living by @tom.viaene.31 of @triggerfomu . 
The exhibition ‘assisting eyes’ unveils a tapestry of experimentation, weaving together portraits of a river, movement, moss and light. By extending the idea and use of photography to different scales, Tanja Engelberts, Dries Segers and Mio Fujimaki literally bring things to the surface, exploring new ways of imagining energy. The exhibition was curated by Charlotte Koenen and is a part of the Archipel Programme of the ‘Biennale de l’Image Possible’ of Liège (BE). 1: Light Meter. Graphic design by Yuri Sato 2:Beautiful work of Dries and Tanja’s in the space 3:Details of “Portrait of the Moss from Reila, Finland” The moss was harvested during the residency at @muijala.art.space 2023. 4:More image of “Portrait of the Moss from Reila, Finland . Thank you for your support for the prints @brentdahling and @christinahallstrom 5:Details of the Light Meter. Thank you for your support @bbbbgrabb 6:B32 team @b32artspace 7:this exhibition was part of photography biennale of Liege @bipliege 8:postcard @emile.p.hermans 9:🤍

Glow in the dark to the process of Light Meter. Mio Fujimaki🦉and Yuri Sato 🦇 turned the BB into a night club. 🎇🎇🎇 After a week of exposure in the space, each page shows different light shades. Light Meter is part of the “Assisting Eyes” exhibition at B32, from 5th to 28th April. The exhibition is a part of the Archipel Programme of the ‘Biennale de l’Image Possible’ of Liège and its curated by Charlotte Koenen. @fjmkmo @yuri_sato @b32artspace @rietveldacademie

The exhibition “In Vitro” at Bureau Europa in Maastricht is running till 16th June 2024! I’m very happy that “Bruise” is part of this beautiful exhibition. The works which are exhibited in this exhibition is wide ranged, you can see many new art works, ancient artifacts, and design, architectural works too! If you are near by Maastricht, come have a look👀 Thank you @bureau_europa , Remco Beckers for the curation work and the building up team for your support 💪

Thank you for sharing for the time, space and the experience @de_meldkamer 🙏 The bright space at de meldkamer was turned into a light observation station, during the last week of the beautiful art book fair curated by @anne_buscher . 1. 2. After a week of light exposure in the light space, on the pile of analogue photographic paper. 3. The light has reached on the rim of the paper but not in the middle. 4. How it looked few days after exposure started. 5. 6.How it looked in the first few hours of exposure.

Time at @muijala.art.space 🌻 thank you for letting me join the exhibition “Harvest”🙏. The exhibition article is on Länsi Suomi, the local West Finland newspaper. And its front page is covered by the local colours I harvested here🌾 My idea for this residency program was about making with local ingredients/materials. I decided to re-visit my old knowledge of plant dye, and I have been foraging some plants around the area. The exhibition was initially not in my plan though, when Roos showed me the gallery space which was a former cattle barn, I saw a big “palette” in the space. And that made me decide to share the extracts that were prepared originally as “dye baths”, as a temporary installation work.

I would like to share one of the object I made for an occasion of the current exhibition at Japanisches Kulturinstitut Köln. “Tsukiyomi” is an object made of an idea of the moon, is crafted out of analog black and white photographic paper, both the cover and the content of it. The more the book is “read”, the more it will be exposed to the light and will start to show the page numbers, each page turning into a different colour. In Japanese mythology, the god of the moon is called “Tsukiyominomikoto”. Tsuki means the “moon", Yomi means "to read". The book has 29,5 pages, a number derived from the Lunar cycle - a month. Seven different types of paper are used for this booklet, which makes up the cycle of the moon. Graphic design:Yuri Sato Thank you Yuri chan for all your thoughts and works, you have such a great sensitivity to all the details🤍And thank you very much for Book bindery workshop at GRA❤️‍🔥

APPLAUSE and BIG BIG Thank you for all the people who helped me making works and making this exhibition possible! Thank you so much. Since Netherlands is in lock down, I am not sure if it’s appropriate to say “I like to invite you…”. However, if you are happened to be close by Köln, it would be great to have you there. The exhibition runs till March 25th.