Eiko Soga is a London-based Japanese artist, working with moving images, photography, poetry, and installation. Through her interdisciplinary projects, she explores the relationship between emotional and natural landscapes within the more-than-human world.
Soga has completed her practice-led PhD in 2023, titled ‘Felt Knowledge: Ecologising Art and Samani Ainu Cooking’ at The Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. She worked with the idea of ‘making’ as a mode of research from an artist perspective, through documentation, activation, sharing, and learning and thinking-through-practicing. Her research used storytelling as a way to observe and document how ephemeral and sensory aspects of everyday processes can lead to bigger phenomena such as collectiveness and the development of culture.
Eiko has been showing her art works internationally in exhibitions including Pitt Rivers Museum and Modern Art Oxford in Oxford, the Ethnographic Museum in Switzerland, the Ichihara Art Museum in Japan, and Arts Catalyst in London. She is a lecturer in Fine Art at Kingston School of Art.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS & SCREENINGS
Modern Art Oxford, MAO Late, ‘My Neighbour's Meal’ and ‘Autumn Salmon’ installation, UK (2022)
Pitt Rivers Museum, Tonkori amongst the Spires: Celebrating Ainu music and culture with special guest OKI, 'Autumn Salmon' and
'Ainu Hunter, Mon-chan' screening, UK (2022)
Roots and Arts Shiraoi, Video installation ‘Autumn Salmon’, ‘Ainu Hunter, Mon-chan’, ‘My Neighbour’s Meal’, Japan (2022)
Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology, University of Oxford, 'Autumn Salmon' screening led by Dr Charlotte Linton, UK (2022)
Aarhus University, Department of Global Studies, ‘Autumn Salmon’ screening led by Dr Eiko Honda, Denmark (2022)
Nordland Kunst og Filmhøgskole, Cosmic Assemblages: On Moving Image Ecologies, 'Autumn Salmon' screening led by Dr George
Clark, Norway (2022)
Komagome SOKO, Making poetry with solid objects, Group exhibition, Japan (2022)
University of Oxford TORCH, Tonkori: Musical Conservations with Oki, Live event, online (2021)
University of Oxford TORCH, Japan Season, Solo exhibition at three venues: Pitt Rivers Museum, The Window Galleries, 95
Gloucester Green, UK (2021)
COP26, University of Oxford, When a lack of consensus is more productive: the importance of diversifying knowledge production, ‘
Ainu Hunter, Mon-chan’ film screening, UK (2021)
University of Oxford TORCH, Japan Season, ‘Marewrew’s Voice’ film screening, online (2021)
Ichihara Art Mix, Site-specific research art installation, Japan (2021)
Design Biennale Zürich hosted by the Ethnographic Museum Zürich, ‘Autumn Salmon’ film screening, Switzerland (2021)
The Feuilleton: I Will Bear Witness, Piggybacking from The Edicola, Spoleto, Roma, and Edicola, Installation, Italy (2021)
s-l-i-c-e, ‘Ainu Hunter, Mon-chan’ film screening, Germany (2021)
Video Forms Digital Arts, ‘Autumn Salmon’ film screening, France (2021)
Oxford-UdK Berlin Partnership in Arts and Humanities, ‘Ainu Hunter, Mon-chan’ film screening, Germany and UK (2021)
The Bagri Foundation, At Home in the World, ‘Ainu Hunter, Mon-chan’ film screening, UK (2020)
The University of Sheffield, School of East Asian Studies, Imagining Our Digital Futures: The View from Japan, ‘Autumn Salmon’ film
screening, UK (2020)
Ichihara Lake Side Museum, Site Specific Art - Learning from the Folklorist Tsuneichi Miyamoto, ‘Autumn Salmon’ installation, Group
exhibition, Japan (2019)
Index Festival Hub, Yorkshire House, Kuroko, Group exhibition, UK (2019)
CAI-Contemporary Art Institute, Bamboo Tori, Solo exhibition, Japan (2019)
Benizakura Art Festival, Tuning Bamboo, Group exhibition, Japan (2019)
The North Wall Arts Center, The Flute & the Bowl, The Diffracting Matters, Group exhibition, UK (2019)
Five Years Gallery, Microbes as Secret Agents, video screening, UK (2019)
Itoshima International Art Festival, ‘Autumn Salmon’ film screening, Japan (2018)
Uymam Art Project, ‘Nemagaridake’ installation, Japan (2018)
Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, Digital Japan Mini-Festival, ‘Autumn Salmon’ film installation, UK (2018)
Twin Gallery, As If We Could Scrape the Colour of the Iris and Still See, Group exhibition, Spain (2018)
Oxford Artistic and Practice Based Research Platform Validity Issue2, Group exhibition, UK (2017)
CAI-Contemporary Art Institute, ‘Autumn Salmon’ installation, Solo exhibition, Japan (2017)
You See Me Like a UFO curated by Marcelle Joseph, Group exhibition, UK (2017)
Ecologies of Knowledge and Practice: Japanese Studies and the Environmental Humanities, University of Oxford, ‘Autumn Salmon’
film screening, UK (2017)
Arts Catalyst, Artistic Practice - Working with Displaced Workshop, ‘Autumn Salmon’ film screening, UK (2017)
ARTIST TALKS & CONFERENCES
Ikon Gallery, TOWARDS A LIVEABLE WORLD: Learning From Ainu Culture, Panel discussion, UK (2022)
The Japan Anthropology Workshop, UAB, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain (2022)
Universität der Künste (UdK), More-than-human perspectives and regenerative art practices toward climate justice. A collaboration
between Experimental Film and Media Art, Universität der Künste (UdK, Berlin) and the Climate Crisis Thinking Network,
University of Oxford. Germany (2022)
The Pitt Rivers Museum, Matters of Policy, Podcast, UK (2021)
s-l-i-c-e, In conversation with Robert Prideaux, Artist talk, Germany (2021)
The Pitt Rivers Museum, Relabelling Project, Webinar, UK (2021)
University of Oxford, History of Art Department, Image and Object Symposium: Shape Shifting, Research presentation, UK (2021)
Oxford-UdK Berlin Partnership in Arts and Humanities, Artist Talk, Germany and UK (2021)
The University of Sheffield, School of East Asian Studies, Reciprocal Empathy, Imagining Our Digital Futures: The View from Japan,
Research presentation, UK (2020)
Lancaster University, Blue Seas Thinking: A Workshop on Interdisciplinary Marine Social Science. Artist talk, Lancaster, UK (2019)
University of Oxford, Pembroke College, 3rd Tanaka Symposium in Japanese Studies, Artist talk, UK (2019)
University of Oxford, St Anthony’s College, Ecologies of Knowledge and Practice: Japanese Studies and the Environmental
Humanities, Artist talk, UK (2017)
WORKSHOPS
PUBLICATIONS
Eiko Soga, Back Then, Cute Slippers, Going Postal, Essay authour, Akerman Daly, UK (2021)
Eiko Soga, First Words, Akerman Daly, Poetry-essay authour, UK (2018)
Eiko Soga, Dr Jeffry Gayman, Art Ethnography as Practice-Based Research. Action Research on Articulations of Indigenous
Knowledge in Hokkaido, Japan, Essay authour, Japan (2017)
RESIDENCY
Uymam Art Project, Hokkaido, Japan (2018)
Akerman Daly, First Words, UK (2017)
The Sidney Nolan Trust, Lines in the Landscape, UK (2017)
Asia House, Work in Progress, UK (2014)
SUPPORT