BIO

Yumi Kori is a Japanese-born artist and architect based in New York and Tokyo. Kori majored in architecture at the Kyoto Prefecture University in 1983. She was awarded Japanese First Class Architect License in February, 1990. In 1991, she established Studio MYU Architects in Tokyo. Kori was enrolled in the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University and graduated in 1995. From 1996 to 2004, she was active as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia and Barnard College and has taught Japanese architecture seminars and design studios. Additionally, she has lectured at many other Universities including Yale University, Parsons the new School for Design, Nagoya Institute of Technology Japan, and University of Brasilia. Along with her architectural projects and set designs for dance companies, Kori has created numerous art projects.

She works with the context of the place and transforms it into another space by using light, sound and architectural settings. Her installations invite visitors to walk into the space. Audiences experience the altered space through their body and senses. Thus the visitor discovers new spatial and temporal dimensions hidden in the existing space. Projects have been realized in public space, ruins, abandoned buildings and museums through out the world, including New York, Seattle, Washington DC, Berlin, Basel, Sao Paulo and Tokyo.

Kori is also the recipient of prestigious awards such as the ar+d award by The Architectural Review, London in 2002 and 2003; the Modern Living Award in 2005; the Osaka Cityscape Award in 2002; Chiba Architectural Cultural Award in 2001 and 2007; and The Tokyo Architectural Award in 1998. Kori has also received research grants from the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan to study the relationship between art and architecture in Public Art in 2004-2005. She has been invited by numerous art organizations as a guest artist, such as at Urban Glass, NY in 2009; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh in 2008; Sacatar Foundation in Bahia, Brazil 2008; Guest Atelier at Wartec, Basel, Switzerland 2006; Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Swing Space in 2005; and ISCP, International Studio Curatorial Program, NY in 2004.