Image: Aomori Museum of Art
Aomori Museum of Art will stage a major solo exhibition by photographer and artist Lieko Shiga from 31 October 2026 to 14 March 2027. Titled 'Aomori Museum of Art 20th Anniversary / 15 Years Since the Great East Japan Earthquake: Lieko Shiga 'Nanimo Kanimo''', the exhibition is presented as a new chapter in Shiga’s long engagement with northeastern Japan and will be her largest exhibition to date, according to the museum.
The museum describes Shiga, who is based in Miyagi, as an artist internationally known for images and video works rooted in bodily sensation, light and color, and theatrical image-making. The exhibition title, 'Nanimo Kanimo', comes from a dialect used along the Sanriku coast. The museum says the phrase can carry different meanings depending on speaker and context, including “I give up,” “a sigh from the depths of the sea,” and “everything and anything.”
According to the museum, the exhibition gathers photographs, moving-image works, texts and installations, mixing new works with earlier material. It is built from Shiga’s close attention to the landscapes, histories, voices and scenes she has encountered across Miyagi, Fukushima, Yamagata, Akita, Iwate and Aomori since before the 2011 disaster. The museum says the show reflects on northeastern Japan in the years after the earthquake and on the social divisions and fading memory of disaster that persist today.
Shiga’s earlier work 'Kairen Kaigan' is cited by the museum as a defining project in her career. After first visiting Japan’s Pacific coast in 2006 for an exhibition, she moved to Kitakama in Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, in 2008. There she worked as a local photographer and conducted oral-history interviews, before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami affected the area. The museum says 'Kairen Kaigan', made with the cooperation of people in Kitakama, became one of the most widely discussed photo series of the 2000s and that the new Aomori exhibition is her second solo presentation focused on Tohoku since then.
The exhibition will include new photographs and videos, as well as a substantial reworking of the 2025 work 'Nanimo Kanimo', which centers on the fictional figure Enao. The museum says that work will be reorganized for this presentation with the help of support staff. It will also show revised versions of 'That Night, the Connected Place' from 2022 and 'When the Wind Blows' from 2022-23, presented in formats adapted to the exhibition’s combination of image and text.
The exhibition will run at Aomori Museum of Art, with opening hours from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., and late openings until 8 p.m. on 14 November, 19 December and 16 January. Admission at the door will be 1,700 yen for adults and 1,200 yen for university students, while visitors aged 18 and under, and high school students, will be admitted free. The museum also lists advance tickets through Lawson Ticket, and a set ticket for the Shiga exhibition and the collection exhibition available only at the door.
