Artist Statement/ Biography

Niwa’s practice explores the way Western notions of personhood subsume human life into constructs of sexuality and gender, overlooking the various other modes of unbridled existence: plant, microbial. fungal, animal, celestial bodies. Her speculative medical papers propose novel forms of body modification to combat gender dysphoria as well as playfully explore the possible efficacy of including fecal matter transplants as part of hormone replacement therapy for transgender individuals.

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Umico Niwa (b. 1991, Japan) received her MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from the Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, in 2020. Rejecting Western notions of personhood, Niwa considers alternative modes of existence unbridled by bodily-restrictions or gender constructs. Her creations speak to a state of being defined by perpetual movement - a flower, wilting; a fruit ripening. A seed vault, a genetic sequence, a sensorium, a somatic memory bank. A valley full of weeds, bursting with life.

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