EMI KUSANO
b. 1990, JapanEmi Kusano (草野絵美) is a multidisciplinary artist born in Tokyo in 1990. Her practice integrates emerging technologies, including AI, to explore nostalgia, pop culture, and collective memory. Her work has been exhibited internationally at institutions including M+ Museum (Hong Kong), Saatchi Gallery (London), Grand Palais Immersif (Paris), Museum Francisco Carolinum (Linz), and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. She participated in a Gucci-Christie’s auction in 2023 and a charity auction by Christie’s and UNHCR in 2024. In 2025, she was recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
Kusano began her artistic career as a teenage street photographer, documenting Harajuku’s fashion culture, which led to an exhibition at Victoria and Albert Museum. Her experiences in photography and fashion informed her creative vision, exploring how mass media shapes individual and collective identities.
Beyond visual art, she is the founder and lead singer of Satellite Young, a music group reinterpreting 1980s J-POP through a contemporary sci-fi lens, performing internationally at events including SXSW.
By integrating AI and digital technologies into her creative process, Kusano positions technology as a collaborative partner rather than a defining element. Her works invite audiences to reconsider contemporary society through dialogues between past and present, expressed within a retro-futuristic aesthetic.
Courtesy √K Contemporary
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