Installation
SEI
→ SEI02
→ SEI03
→ SEI05
→ SEI06

EN
→ EN02
→ EN03
→ EN04

MI
→ MI01
→ MI02

GO
→ GO01
→ GO02
→ GO03
→ GO04

GALAXY
→ GALAXY01
→ GALAXY02
→ GALAXY03
 
SHIKAKU
→ SHIKAKU04
→ SHIKAKU05
→ SHIKAKU07
→ SHIKAKU08


AUDIO-VISUAL
PROJECT
MAPPATHON™

TEACHING
CONSULTING

ABOUT
CONTACT

Artist CV CHIKA is a Japanese-born artist, researcher, technologist, and educator based in New York City.

ARTIST STATEMENT
In her ongoing projects SEI, EN, MI, and GO, she works with Japanese homophones — kanji characters that share a single pronunciation but carry different meanings. The characters become the structure — their count gives the elements, their meanings the arrangement. A shape can outlast the light that made it.

She works across two cultures, observing both the disparities and the harmonies between the ethereal and the concrete, the invisible and the visible. Her practice draws on advanced technology and minimalism, Japanese philosophies including Zen, Taoism, and Symbolism, and the crafts of visual content, light design, and projection mapping.

Complex concepts arrive as simple forms: light, geometry, and what the eye does with them.

SHORT BIO
CHIKA is a Japanese-born artist and educator based in New York City. Working with projection mapping, LED, and Japanese homophones, she constructs light installations in which a single form is never only itself. Her work has been shown at the Exploratorium and is permanently installed at the New York Hall of Science.

BIO
CHIKA is a Japanese-born artist, researcher, technologist, and educator based in New York City. She works with light — projection mapping, LED, and custom electronics — building installations that range from small wall-mounted sculptures to works spanning twenty feet of architecture.

Her ongoing series SEI, EN, MI, and GO take their structure from Japanese homophones: kanji characters that share a single pronunciation while carrying unrelated meanings. The number of characters sharing a sound sets the number of elements in a work, and the relations among their meanings set its geometry. EN — written as circle (円), connection (縁), and feast (宴) — yields one configuration; SEI, read as star (星), silent (静), and alive (生), yields another. The resulting installations are spare, and their effects persist: in SEI03, a star of LED and metal remains in the viewer's eye after the light has gone.

Her work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Exploratorium, the New York Hall of Science, the Bronx Museum, the Kiewit Luminarium, Eyebeam, Harvestworks, the Mapping Festival, and Mutek, among others. Her 2023 commission for the New York Hall of Science is permanently installed there.

She is an alum of residencies and fellowships at NYU's ITP, Eyebeam, the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, and the Experimental Television Center. Her work has been supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, FCA Emergency Grants, City Artist Corps Grants, the Manhattan Community Arts Fund, NYSCA Presentation Funds, and the New Mexico Art Fund.

She holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts and an MPS from ITP at New York University. As an educator she focuses on projection and LED mapping, helping students bring ambitious projects to completion, and serves as adjunct professor at NYU, Hunter College, and Queens College. She is the founder of Mappathon™ and of a range of projection mapping workshops.

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RESIDENCIES
2020-24
2022            
2019    
2018    
2017    
             
2016    
              
              
2015    
2013    
2009  


FELLOWSHIPS
2016    
2012    
             


GRANT & FUND
2022  
2021    
             
2015    
2014    
2013    
             


AWARDS
1994     


RESEARCH
2016    

NYSCI Designers-in-Residency, NY USA
Paseo Project, NM, USA
VFL Residency, NY USA
Mana Contemporary, NJ, USA
Hervestworks Workspace Residency, NY, USA
Elsewhere Artist Residency, NY, USA
The Bronx Museum AIM Program Residency, NY, USA
Laboratory Residency, WA, USA
Triangle Workshop Residency, NY, USA
Made in NY Media Center by IFP Residency, NY, USA
Eyebeam Spring Summer Residency, NY, USA
Experimental TV Center Residency, NY, USA



BRIC Media Arts Fellowship, NY, USA
IAC Teaching and Research Fellowship, NY, USA
ITP, New York University Fellowship, NY, USA



National Endowment Grants, DC, USA
FCA Emergency Grants, NY, USA
City Artist Corps Grants, NY, USA
New Mexico Art Fund, NM, USA
The Manhattan Community Arts Fund, NY, USA
FCA Emergency Grants, NY, USA
YSCA Presentation Funds, NY, USA



Rhodes Family Award, School of Visual Arts, NY, USA



Metropolitan Museum Media Lab, NY, USA

ARTIST TALK
2022    


2021    



2020  
2019
2017    


2016    



2015  

2014  

2013    


2012    

2010  

The Woman of the World Artist, NY, USA
Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA
IDM NYU, NY USA
ITP/IMA Grad Launch, NY, USA
NowHere Galley, NY, USA
Projection Mapping Association of Japan, TKO. JP
New York Hall of Science, NY, USA
Governors Island, NY, USA
Potion Design, NY, USA
Parsons School of Design, NY, USA
Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago Chile
Harvestworks, NY, USA
Projection Mapping Association of Japan, TKO JP
Ramapo College, NJ, USA
Carrot Creative, NY, USA
Campus Party, Guadalajara, MX
Spokane WAM, WA, USA
FIMA, Morelia, MX
Projection Mapping Association of Japan, TKO JP
Pecha Kucha Taos, NM USA
Zuyd University, NY USA
Huge, NY USA
Japan Foundation, NY, USA
ITP, NYU, NY, USA, 
NYU Gallatin School, NY, USA
NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering, NY, USA
Mappi Festival, Museo de la ciudad, Quito, EC
The Very First Year: Pecha Kucha, Eyebeam, NY, USA
ESI Design, NY, USA
Apple Store, TKO JP
Wiki-Sprint Mapping Festival, Geneva, CH

2024 ©CHIKA   ALL RIGHTS RESERVED