Dr Eiko Soga

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Eiko Soga
About
Research

About

I am an artist based in London. I work with moving image, photography, poetry, and installation to explore how our sensory knowledge-based engagement contributes to a diverse ecosystem of the more-than-human world. My work uses storytelling as a way to observe and document how ephemeral and intangible aspects of everyday processes can lead to bigger phenomena such as collectiveness and the development of culture. In doing so, I develop modes of thinking which embody value systems that moves away from the colonial, capitalistic, and imperialistic social norms that we might still carry. 

Through my practice-led PhD, I produced a photography-essay book titled, ‘Felt Knowledge: Ecologising Art and Samani Ainu Cooking'. 

Selected exhibitions include: MAO Late, Modern Art Oxford (UK), Roots and Arts Shiraoi (Japan), Video Forms Digital Arts (France), Design Biennale Zürich, Ethnographic Museum (Switzerland), Learning from the Folklorist Tsuneichi Miyamoto, Ichihara Lake Side Museum (Japan), Kuroko, Index Festival Hub (UK), Bamboo Tori, Sapporo CAI (Japan), Nemagaridake, Uymam Art Project (Japan). Conferences and artist talks include: Japan Anthropology Workshop (JAWS), Relabelling Project, Pitt Rivers Museum (UK), Imagining Our Digital Futures, University of Sheffield (UK), Blue Seas Thinking, Lancaster University (UK), 3rd Tanaka Symposium in Japanese Studies, University of Oxford (UK), Ecologies of Knowledge and Practice, University of Oxford (UK). 

Academic responsibilities

Lecturer, Fine Art

Qualifications

  • PhD in Fine Art, The Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford
  • MSc in Japanese Studies, Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford
  • MFA in Fine Art, The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London
  • BA in Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts London

Research

During my practice-led PhD at The Ruskin School of Art, I lived in Samani, Hokkaido in Japan over seven months. Learning indigenous Samani Ainu cooking across different seasons from Ms Kane Kumagai, I questioned how an art practice can explore ‘felt knowledge' of the more-than-human world. My everyday presence with local people's lived experiences and multi-species encounters in Samani was an act of artistic experimentation that could acquire a different way of exchanging knowledge. Across these relationships I learned how our sensory knowledge-based engagement with both people and nature can contribute to a diverse ecosystem.