Groundbreaker Members: Join us for a visit to the studio of Akiko Yamamoto, a Japanese-born, Brooklyn-based artist whose work explores the fragmented nature of migration, identity, and cultural translation. Get an inside look at her creative process and preview works in progress.
Through labor-intensive processes of layering and excavation, Yamamoto’s work embodies the experience of moving between cultures—constantly learning, unlearning, and reconstructing meaning across different contexts. Working with origami paper, rice paper, magazine clippings, silver leaf, and handmade rice glue, Yamamoto builds topographical surfaces that she then methodically sands and cuts away, revealing unexpected histories beneath. This process mirrors the renewal of traditional Japanese shoji screens while addressing the contemporary experience of displacement. Her compositions exist in deliberate flux—resembling puzzles either coalescing into form or dispersing into fragments—creating a visual language where deconstructed shapes, vivid colors, and layered textures become iconographic forms for memory, ancestry, and place.
This program is free and reserved for Groundbreaker Members in thanks for their generous support of the Brooklyn Museum. To RSVP or for questions, email membership@brooklynmuseum.org. The studio location will be shared in a follow-up email.
Not a Member? Join today to participate in this program and other great Member events year-round.
For accessibility accommodations, including ASL interpretation, email access@brooklynmuseum.org.
