Image: Sugita Aoi, Selfish Shells of the 21st Century, 2024 (reference image)
NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) in Tokyo is presenting ‘emergencies! 049’, devoted to the video installation ‘Selfish Shells of the 21st Century’ by the young artist Sugita Aoi. The exhibition runs from 12 September to 8 November 2026 at ICC, in Tokyo Opera City Tower in Shinjuku.
The work starts from the state of reproductive medicine. According to ICC, research and technology have already brought about a world in which cloned humans and designer babies are possible, and ethical debate over the selection and manipulation of eggs, sperm, embryos and genes is expected to continue alongside that research. The installation asks on what basis some traits come to be chosen as ‘good’ while others are excluded.
Through a science-fiction narrative, Sugita sets out a position of resistance to a society in which, in ICC’s description, life is devalued, people and other living beings are reduced to objects, unnatural improvement is encouraged and elimination takes place. The piece, first realised in 2024, is presented in a 2026 version.
Born in 2002, Sugita is studying in the Department of Advanced Art Expression at the Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. Sugita’s installations take in the whole exhibition space, combining research into real-world problems and entrenched social prejudice with surreal imagery in order to put questions to the viewer. Recent research has focused on ethical issues in reproductive medicine, including gamete donation, surrogacy and designer babies, as well as on the fragility of human perception and cognition and the exclusionary structures that can grow from them.
An interview with the artist, in Japanese, is available on ICC’s YouTube channel and as part of the Channel ICC podcast.
