Tokyo-born interdisciplinary artist Migiwa Orimo resides in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she brings to life creations with multilayered messaging, as well as focusing her energies on the upcoming election and helping pro-democracy and equality activists get out the message.
Migiwa Orimo’s passion for her art is only rivaled by her recent efforts to help those fighting for rights under threat in this fraught political era.
Orimo’s art is composed of disparate elements such as text, drawings, photographs, objects, and textiles, exploring notions of gap, slippage, margins, and “a realm of disjunction.”
For her work, she has received international recognition and is one of the selected artists to participate in the international group exhibition “New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC.
But it's her activism of late that has taken up much of her energy ahead of the November election.
Orimo is behind an ongoing project called “The People’s Banner Workshop,” which provides free visual aids like banners, signs, and props for direct action, protest rallies, picket lines, and other street actions for social justice.
Photograph below Kathleen Smith
The workshop collaborates with groups like Black Lives Matter, Immigration Justice, and others to combat racism, climate change, and the other leading issues we face as a nation and planet. It also provides citizens/activists a space–artist’s studio and/or public venues–for building comradeship.
But enough from me. Let’s hear from the artist herself:
In recent years, my practice has taken me to researching government declassified documents, institutional reports, historical narratives, and personal communications.
These communications are publicly available, yet, at the same time, they point us to what is absent, hidden, and redacted. I re-present these communications, deploying various material strategies in order to reveal what lies between “shown and hidden,” examining the nuances of communications and censorship.
For me, an interdisciplinary artist, my practice is rooted in a belief that artists have the capacity to invigorate social, aesthetic, and educational exchanges in our communities.
During recent years, we have witnessed a significant cultural shift in our country––and in the world. To me, an ongoing question has been: “Are there moments when history requires us to respond with a sense of urgency? If so, are we at one of those moments?”
I believe we are.
Art brings a context to our society in which we learn about ourselves—who we are to each other. We can become change agents in society; to do that, I believe I need to bring my citizenry to my practice.
I remind myself that the goal is not merely to envision a new world but to actively participate in its creation and question and challenge the structures that shape our social landscape.
