Chiharu Shiota: My House is your House

Azkuna Zentroa—Alhóndiga Bilbao presents My House is your House, an exhibition by Berlin-based Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, one of the leading figures in contemporary world art.

Curated by art historian Tereza de Arruda, the exhibition uses the colour red and monumental scale to connect the Centre’s Atrium with the Exhibition Hall in a tour ranging from her beginnings through to her latest installations, exhibited here for the first time.

The main themes in Chiharu Shiota’s interventions are time, movement, dreams, and memory. Her works are conceived out of everyday items, memories, and objects that have been found or are out of use. Her subjective vision and her experience are the starting points for the conception of her immersive works, in which she tackles the spiritual dimension of human existence through themes such as the home, migration, life and death. Garments, furniture, and other items are at the forefront of her works, generating a clear and universal narrative, irrespective of language, nationality, religion, or each person’s cultural background.

In this selection, Shiota has worked in conjunction with the Centre on the concept of home, extending the domestic realm to a public space in dialogue with the architecture of the Bilbao Alhóndiga. The result, a site-specific installation, invites visitors to experience different home settings that connect them with their memories.

Chiharu Shiota
Trained in painting (Kyoto Seika University, 1992–1996) and visual arts (Braunschweig University of Art, 1997–1999 / Berlin University of the Arts, 1999–2003), Chiharu Shiota is based in Berlin. She has exhibited, inter alia, at Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (QAGoMA), Brisbane; ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe; Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Wellington; Mori Museum of Art, Tokyo; Gropius Bau, Berlin; Art Gallery of South Australia; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, United Kingdom; Kochi Museum of Art; and Osaka National Art Museum.

During the first quarter of 2025 she has exhibited at the Grand Palais, Paris. She has also taken part in numerous international exhibitions such as the Oku-Noto International Art Festival, the Biennale of Sydney, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, the Yokohama Triennale and the SESC Pinheiros of São Paulo. In 2015, Shiota was selected to represent Japan at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Azkuna Zentroa—Alhóndiga Bilbao. Bilbao Society and Contemporary Culture Centre
Azkuna Zentroa is the Bilbao Society and Contemporary Culture Centre, with a local and international perspective open to dialogue with different community groups. Azkuna Zentroa is a place to take part in culture as a practice, process and space for experiences, through four lines of programming: Visual arts, Performing Arts, Film and Audio-visuals, and Literature. These lines dialogue among themselves generating a hybrid, multiple and expanded programming. Always with education as a way to generate critical knowledge and transform society through art and artists.