Flowers in saturated colours, artificial lights, reflections and fragments of the urban landscape are recurring elements in Mika Ninagawa’s work. From 16 December 2026 to 21 March 2027, the Grand Palais in Paris will present Alive with shadows, an exhibition devoted to the Japanese artist and the first presentation of her work on this scale in Europe. Photography, moving images, projections and installations form a project created in collaboration with the creative collective EiM. Born in Tokyo in 1972, Ninagawa first established herself as a photographer, developing a distinctive visual language characterised by intense colours and subjects ranging from flowers and goldfish to portraits and the contemporary city. Over time, she expanded her practice into film, video and installation. She has directed five feature films, including Helter Skelter in 2012 and Diner in 2019, as well as the Netflix series Followers in 2020, and has published more than one hundred photography books. She is also a member of EiM, with whom she develops environmental and multimedia projects. Alive with shadows brings this research into the exhibition space through environments constructed from digital images, moving projections and three-dimensional forms. Flowers and vegetation overlap with lights and fragments of the metropolis, while the original photographs are multiplied, enlarged or transformed into animated sequences. The shift from still image to installation also changes the scale of the work: photographs are no longer simply objects to be viewed but become part of the surrounding environment. Behind the chromatic impact are themes that have long been present in Ninagawa’s work. Blossoming is associated with its inevitable disappearance, light coexists with shadow, and the vitality of the images with the fragility of memory. The title itself, Alive with shadows, brings these opposites together, shifting attention from visual exuberance alone towards time and transformation. The Paris exhibition follows several major projects created in Japan with EiM. Eternity in a Moment, presented at Tokyo Node between 2023 and 2024, marked a move towards large-scale immersive installations, in 2025, the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art hosted Lights of the beyond, Shadows of this world. At the Grand Palais, this body of work is presented on an extensive scale in Europe for the first time.
