Episode 494 / Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka

Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka is a Japanese-Canadian, queer artist that lives with bipolar condition, all of which sculpts her practice. She works primarily with paper, and uses printmaking, ink drawing and natural dying combined with sewing. She engages with historical paper processes and materials that both require and contribute to a clean environment. Her adaptations of traditions, in the form of sculpture, large-scale print installations and wearable sculptures, address contemporary questions of climate change, mental health, and survival. Recurring motifs related to landscape, fish, and bodies of water together speak about personal and collective experiences of struggle, resilience, connection and radical joy. Hatanaka’s practice includes a decade of community-engaged projects based in the high Arctic, and collaborative performances that integrate and reinterpret kamiko, garments sewn out of washi (Japanese paper).

Hatanaka has exhibited her work at the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, CA), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, CA), The British Museum (London, UK), Toronto Biennial of Art (Toronto, CA), Nikkei National Museum (Burnaby, CA), Ino Cho Paper Museum (Kochi, Japan), Kotaro Nukaga (Tokyo, Japan), NADA Miami and NYC, The Wellin Museum (Clinton, USA) and Harper’s Gallery (New York, USA). Recent acquisitions of her work include: Shiga Prefecture Museum, Japan; Material Art and Design Museum, USA, Dallas Art Museum, USA; Wellin Museum, USA and The British Museum, UK. She was a 2025 Black Rock Senegal artist in residence.