Mika Ninagawa

Photographer and Film Director
Born in Tokyo. Recipient of many awards, including the Hitotsuboten Grand Prix, New Cosmos of Photography Excellence Award, Konica Photo Encouragement Award, Kimura Ihei Award, and Ohara Museum of Art Award (Voca Exhibition). Ever since Ninagawa began working as an artist she has released a photography collections yearly, and has currently has over one hundred publications. Her first feature length film as a director Sakuran was released in 2007. It received high acclaim in Japan as well as overseas at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival and the 31st Hong Kong International Film Festival. In November 2008 she began her nationwide large-scale retrospective exhibition tour “Mika Ninagawa: Earthly Flowers, Heavenly Colors” at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery. It attracted a total of 180,000 visitors. In 2010 she published a photography collection from Rizzoli New York, which received attention around the world. Her second film as director Helter Skelter was released in 2012, and received the Shindo Kaneto Silver Award. In 2016, at Taiwan's Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA Taipei), Ninagawa held a large-scale individual exhibition, far surpassing the museum's previous record for number of visitors. She has been appointed as one of the executive board members for the 2020 Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.