Riko Tamekuni


Multidisplinary independent designer, based in Eindhoven, NL.


 




My Body of Water
⏤ What Bears the Message

2023-24 My Body of Water ⏤ What Bears the Message is an experimental audio essay exploring water as a medium of knowledge and connection to the world. Accompanied by abstract moving images and sounds captured using self-made tools, the project invites us to rethink conventional interpretations of water and its role in shaping our perception, identity, and understanding.Through a journey that intertwines past and present, it delves into the relationship between underwater acoustic technology and the oral traditions of Japan’s indigenous peoples. In this fragmented and reflective narrative, water emerges as a living, ever-changing entity, a natural archive of stories and meanings.The project challenges hierarchical notions of knowledge, urging us to relinquish control and division in favor of a more fluid and interconnected perspective. It is not just about listening to water but about recognizing our place within an interdependent ecosystem—an “entangled bank” where everything exists in mutual reliance.

Dredging

2023The development of technology is often told as a single, linear trajectory—disconnected from the lineages of the people who have brought it into being. Framing technology as “the active human interface with the material world,” this video work, Dredging, reflects on the relationship between people and technology along the coastline of The Hague, Netherlands. Once a boundary to be crossed in the pursuit of geopolitical and economic ambition, the coastline has, through this technology, been transformed into a site where the delicate rhythms of the local ecosystem are being reshaped. Institutional archives often lead researchers toward a coherent narrative. Yet when we understand technology as a pattern of human actions unfolding over a long span of time, historical moments begin to weave a different story—one that resists simplicity and invites deeper reflection.

Fluid Space 
⏤ Embracing the Dunes as a Shifting Landscape

2023Conventional ways of mapping often draw a clear line between land and water, overlooking the fluid and shifting states water can take. Building on this idea, we explored how the Sand Motor area in The Hague can be seen not as fixed terrain, but as a continuum of wetness—where sand itself becomes an archive, recording the passage and presence of water.
Through a live installation grounded in an attitude of “becoming mud,” Fluid Space captures the ongoing interaction between sand and water: how their movements shape the land together. The work calls for a shift in thinking—from rigid, controlled systems toward more flexible, evolving approaches that embrace uncertainty and change.

Developed and Produced in collaboration with Daniel Elkayam,Claudio della Schiava, Anahat Bharaj

Umwelt

2022The term “Umwelt”—coined by German biologist Jakob von Uexküll in the early 20th century— describes the unique perceptual world of each organism, offering insight into how reality is shaped by our knowledge and perceptions. Viewing the world as an assemblage of perspectives, this experimental video Umwelt interweaves human and insect viewpoints, drawing from both scientific and philosophical inquiries. It invites openness to differences, other beings, and even more-than-human perspectives—moving beyond singular belief.

Read the Air
⏤ Beyond Fukushima

2022Our bodies are closely connected to the atmosphere through the respiratory system. On March 12, 2011, when the atmosphere in Fukushima, Japan, became filled with 'bad air,' the fear of inhaling invisible harm into a body and belonging to a place tainted by polluted air led to spatial, social, and political divisions among people. These divisions then transformed into an ambiguous and complex social atmosphere. Even though the media no longer reports on Fukushima as it once did, its effects still linger invisibly within the land. “Read the air” is a Japanese expression that refers to understanding the social atmosphere or the invisible in a broader sense. Through interviews with locals and a review of external media coverage, Read the Air explores the alternating reality of Fukushima.

Special thanks to People in Fukushima

Etched in the Amber-Red

2022Etched in the Amber-Red is a book that compiles research on the complex issues surrounding palm oil plantations in Borneo, with a particular focus on the difficulties faced in the daily lives of both the people who currently live and work there, and the indigenous communities who originally inhabited the land. The crude oil, with its distinct color and aroma, reaches consumers without ever being labeled on product packaging, transformed into a colorless, tasteless, and odorless substance—an invisible oil. Similarly, the voices of those living on the plantations are often drowned out by the tangled issues surrounding them. This book traces the connections between readers and the palm oil plantations of Borneo, exploring the realities of daily life for those who live there, beneath the obvious layers of complexity.

Special thanks to NPO HUTANGroup

Raise Your Voice 

2021Raise Your Voice is a collective exhibition featuring 30 works about the White Rose, aiming to carry forward its spirit across different times and contexts. It was held in Japan and Germany. (Japanese title:ネヲハル, German title: Erhebe Deine Stimme) As a member of the curation team, I collaborated with other members in developing the exhibition concept and selecting the works, while I was specifically responsible for creating the visual identity of the exhibition and designing the visual elements of the exhibition space. 

Developed and produced in collaboration with fellow curators Ayano Tsutsui, Christian Stindl, Chisaki Yuki, Mariko Takagi, Rena Takenaka, Riko Pinders, and 30 participants.

Special thanks to White Rose Foundation, Munich.

White Rose
⏤ Resistance of the Writings

2020White Rose – Resistance of the Writings is a redesigned edition of the Japanese translation of Inge Scholl’s Die Weiße Rose (English title: The White Rose). The design choices reflect visual research on both contemporary perceptions of works related to the Third Reich and a historical comparison between the resistance tactics of the White Rose and Nazi propaganda methods. 
In the summer of 1942 and early 1943 in Germany, the White Rose, a student resistance group, printed six “White Rose Leaflets” decrying the Nazi dictatorship and calling for an end to the war. In February 1943, seven members of the resistance group were sentenced to death and executed, while approximately 60 others received long prison sentences. This work seeks to carry on the message of the White Rose, across time and space.

Nominated for Applied Typography 32

How to Break the Silence: How to Close the Gap

2019How to Break the Silence: How to Close the Gap is a short documentary film featuring interviews that explores how citizen media and individuals can actively engage with refugee issues in a media landscape where mass fail to report on them. More broadly, it is an experiment in collectively reflecting on how we can become more aware of the structural and political forces shaping the information bubble we passively inhabit, and how we can transcend the psychological distance that separates ‘us’ from ‘others’.

Director:  Riko Tamekuni
Produced in collaboration with Nana Komori, Nodoka Kawakatsu, Yumi Yamauchi, Yuzuki Inokawa

Special thanks to Dr.Katsuya Soda, Representative of Refugee Now


©2025 Riko Tamekuni