I would like to create artistic methods to keep people’s eyes open to their surroundings. Unfortunately, we all so easily get used to our environment and lose our fresh impressions of the things around us, including towards architecture and the city. Once we lose a fresh viewpoint, we take things for granted and start living passively in a space. The power of architecture and the city are thus reduced and the space ceases speaking to us, and stops stimulating our creativity and imagination.

Temporary installations in public spaces or artistic interventions in existing buildings are ways to rekindle our awareness towards space and place. I have experimented with several methods to change people’s conventional ideas towards the spaces they occupy. Finally, I hope, I will find new effective ways of artistic intervention in our environment.

- Yumi Kori

Yumi Kori is a Japanese born artist and architect based in Tokyo and New York. In 1994, she graduated from the School of Architecture at Columbia University and in 1996, she began teaching an architecture seminar at Columbia and Barnard College. In addition to her architectural projects and set designs, Kori has realized numerous art installations and has received various prestigious awards, including the Modern Living Award; the Osaka Cityscape Award; Kobe Biennial, Art in Container Award; the London ar+d award; and the Tokyo Architectural Award.

Yumi’s background in architecture allowed her prior experience with glass in a different context. She is fascinated by the spatial realities of the medium, and the mystical, almost limitless, effect produced by its transparency and reflective nature.