Mako Ishizuka was born in Kobe, Japan. She studied Interdisciplinary Studied (culture/philosophy/sociology) in Japan, and free art at Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and Malmö Art Academy in Sweden. Many of her projects were developed on the platform of residencies, such as Capacete (Brazil), Bag Factory (South Africa), and IASPIS (Sweden); also through collaboration with locals, including architect-group Septembre (France), and Graduate School of Intercultural Studies at Kobe University (Japan). She has presented her practice at Architecture Biennale in Venice, EHESS in Paris, Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna, International Literary Festival in Riga, amongst others. For her social project, she won the production prize from Fondazione Pistoletto among the UNIDEE grant awardees.

Mako Ishizuka intervenes in the distances that emerge where the global meets the everyday. Using her experiences of living as ‘others’ in various societies, she plays with the norms and logics, and enjoys the challenges and openings generated by uncertain/unfamiliar elements. Her view is communicated in a personal manner, taking various forms, such as installation, performance, workshop, drawing, and writing, in an attempt to look afresh at our values and relation to the surrounding world.

Since 2018, she has been engaged with a project ‘After-Ripening & Corruption’, which deals with the cultural and language translations in the lives of people on the move, where she scoops up what are in the shades of the process of movements such as emotions, deviations, and assumed errors. It travels through different platforms where she becomes a stranger, and she develops what emerged at the last location further in the new local context through social experiments and workshops with the people she encounters. There she aims to bring out their human instincts and active attitude, appreciating the changes that occur in the course.

This residency is supported by Nordic Council of Ministers and Swedish Arts Grants Committee.

SODAS 2123 activities are supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius city municipality.