Mariko Mori

Mariko Mori was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1967. Mori is known for her cyberfeminism and futuristic installations. She initially studied fashion and later became a model in Japan. Feeling confined by Japan's culture of conformity she moved to London where she began to study art. Mori was always looking for ways to express her individualism and give power to women. She believes that womens' own resignation has a big role in the position that they play in Japan's culture. Mori also urged women to take the roles that men gave them and turn it to something that represented them or helped them. In other words "own it". 

Most of Mariko Mori's work is a fine mixture of real life and fantasy it is so intertwined that if you separate the two I don't believe there would be any art.



Here she dresses as a "mermaid" at a local artificial beach in Tokyo. So she is at a fake beach pretending to a mermaid and no one even pays any attention. She actually uses images of herself in most of her work which she says goes back to her work as a model and even to her childhood when her father would take countless pictures of her. She likes and has become accustom to the spot light.



Her later work was about enlightenment and meditation. She embraced technology with open arms and wanted to go as far with it as she could without losing core tradition. So on the surface most of her work seems very futuristic and technologically advanced but once you go a little deeper you see traditional issues or topics.

One traditional value that came up often in her work was Buddhist values. The concept of oneness and the world existing as one interconnected organism. Models for overcoming national and cultural borders.

"The 21st century is rapidly approaching; it promises a new era when a city in space may well become a reality. In the future, we can transcend our national borders to share one consciousness as interconnected life forms and truly global being. It is my hope that Beginning of the End will serve as a symbol of the eternal harmony of the human spirit" - Mariko Mori

This is one of her latest pieces were she erected a pole on a rock and several feet away she set a capsule that illuminates in different color s depending on the flow of the current.