Hanako Murakami was born in Tokyo in 1984, and currently lives and works in Paris. After receiving her Bachelor of Literature from the University of Tokyo, she received her MA from the Tokyo University of the Arts, Department of New Media. She continued her studies for a year in Belgium with a government scholarship. With a grant from the Pola Art Foundation, she then moved to France, where she joined Le Fresnoy National Studio of Contemporary Art.
Many of Hanako Murakami’s works were produced based on her in-depth research of historical media, such as alternative photographic techniques or letterpress printing. Each of these series of works were accompanied by a text written by Murakami that addressed anecdotes from the original days of mechanical reproduction technology and her own experiences. Her works thus produce situations in which truth and fiction, and historical fact and contemporary hypothesis are knotted together.
In recent years Murakami has focused her practice on several key themes, such as the ideas surrounding photography prior to its establishment in material form and the unexploited potential that lies within this context, as well as the memories inherent in the actual support medium and techniques of photography. The work presented on this occasion has been produced in reference to a recipe featured in a letter by William Henry Fox Talbot. The silver-plated copper sheet used as the support medium changes in color depending on the angle from which it is viewed, and although no recognizable image seems to be present, it attempts to evoke a “photograph” from the limited traces that it harbors. Murakami was selected for the New Discovery Award at this year’s Les Recontres d’Arles, where she will present a work related to the conditions and circumstances of photography before its conception, in particular placing emphasis on stages prior to the process of reproduction.
Her major exhibitions include “The Capital Room: Beyond Three Dimensional Logical Pictures: Hanako Murakami,” Gallery αM, Tokyo (2015); “Panorama 17,” Le Fresnoy, Studio National d’Art Contemporain (2015); “Practice of Everyday Life,” Aomori Contemporary Art Centre (2011); “Tokyo Story,” Tokyo Wonder Site (2010) and “Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale,” Niigata (2009).
