Can we carve out space for the quiet voices in this saturated age?

Four artists—each inspired by their encounters with life and death—invite us
to pause, linger, and listen. Their works resist loneliness and erasure, weaving life and death into a single breath: death testifies to lives once lived, while life carries forward its echoes.

Tracing this intertwined state of being, the artists use fragile yet potent materials—dandelion fluff, bodhi leaves, silk threads, ceramic, metallic fiber and cardboard—to explore the mirrored contours of life and death. Across three adjoining rooms, subtle resonances emerge between the works: soft prayer sculptures by Miyake Suzuko see off the gradual departure of Yin Yuan’s doll house, remnants of Shirakawa Sync’s grandpa find gentle company in the tears wiped by Ono Shiori. They evoke presence within absence, like embers glowing from the ashes.

「残り火 / Embers from the Ashes」
Date: 2025.7.5 – 8.3
Time: 13:00 – 20:00
Closed: Tue, Wed
Admission: ¥500
Location: The 5th Floor
Address: Hanazono Alley 5F 3-3-9 Ikenohata Taito-ku Tokyo 110-0008 Japan
Access: 4 min walk from Exit 2, Nezu station of Tokyo Metro

Artists: Yin Yuan, Ono Shiori, Shirakawa Sync, Miyake Suzuko

Curators: Anqi Li, Katrin Bjoerg Gunnarsdottir
Installation support: Ulfur Bragi Einarsson

Organizer: The 5th Floor
The 5th Floor Support: D/C/F/A
Homepage: the5thfloor.org/exhibition
Contact: The 5th Floor info@the5thfloor.org

【Related programs】 Opening Reception
2025.7.5（Sat）18:00 –
18:00 – 18:30 Opening Reception
18:30 – 19:00 Curator’s talk
19:30 – 20:00 Dance performance by Yubusha
20:00 – 21:00 Closing

Dance
Yubusha　 Yuko Keiko
7.5（Sat）　19:30 – 20:00

Departures
Yin Yuan
7.15（Tue）　20:00 – 21:00
7.22（Tue）　20:00 – 21:00
7.29（Tue）　20:00 – 21:00
The 5th Floor is closed on Tuesdays, but is open for Departures.
Please check our SNS (@t5f.tokyo) for any updates.

【Artist Profile】
Yin Yuan
Born in Shanghai, China. Currently based in Tokyo, Japan.
Yin Yuan is a multi-disciplinary artist who has been focusing on the concept of ‘unconscious behavior’ within specific social contexts to question the givenness of subjective autonomy. She experiments with performative installation, and sometimes transforms her works into video, photography, live performance, etc. She is currently advancing her studies in the Doctoral Program in Sculpture at Tokyo University of the Arts.
Activities in the Past Three Years
2022 The Direction of Choice, GALERIE SOL, Tokyo
2023 The 71st Tokyo University of the Arts Graduation Exhibition
Taito City Mayor’s Award Exhibition, Ueno Underground Passage, Tokyo
A-TOM ART AWARD Exhibition Regaining Humanity, CourtyardHIROO Gallery, Tokyo
Usual Sonoaida, SONOAIDA #Shin-Yurakucho, Tokyo
2024 Casting, and All That Comes With It, Gallery Yōhō, Toyama
Revisit Sanya – A Tiny Art Festival, Kiyokawa Park (Taito City Ward), Tokyo
Perform( ), WHITEHOUSE, Tokyo

小野 栞　Ono Shiori
Born in Tokyo in 1995, she completed the doctoral program at Tokyo Zokei University in 2022. Working as both an artist and designer, she creates garments from a single thread, exploring the themes of “skin” and “lightness.” Her work weaves together the material of thread and the technique of fabric-making. Ono’s practice delves into the subtle nuances of textile design, characterized by meticulous craftsmanship and a deep engagement with materials. By juxtaposing different techniques and materials within her pieces, she challenges conventional perceptions of textiles. These intentional combinations invite viewers into a tactile and visual interplay, evoking delicate emotions and abstract concepts. In 2017, she received the ZOKEI Award and went on to win both the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award and the Japan Craft Grand Prize at the 57th Japan Craft Exhibition.
Activities in the Past Three Years
2022 Completed Doctoral Program, Graduate School of Fine Arts, Tokyo Zokei University
Solo Exhibition nuance, OCAILLE
MONO JAPAN, Loods6, Amsterdam
2023 Material, or, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT
2024 Formative Thinking 2, Tokyo Zokei University Art Museum
2025 Solo Exhibition toi, Ars Gallery

白川 深紅　Shirakawa Sync
Born in Tokyo in 1998, she is currently enrolled in the Department of Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts. Centering her practice on mural painting, she combines drawing and design techniques. Her work explores how to confront the life and death of living beings and the world, and how to “enshrine” them in joyful ways. With reference to the context of religious art, she experiments with creating her own painting materials and continues to develop her artistic expression.
Activities in the Past Three Years
2022 Matsu-mai and Sun and Moon Spin, mural works at Shigehiro Hospital, Kisarazu
Solo Exhibition Yuki no Ue o Yuku Yuku, Royal Park Canvas Sapporo Odori Park, Hokkaido
Mural of Ebisu-sama Parade, under the Ebisu overpass, Shibuya
2023 Underground Veins, 500m Museum, Sapporo Odori Underground Gallery, Hokkaido
Body Cover, Kuma Foundation Gallery, Tokyo
2024 Solo Exhibition A Rainbow Beam Bursting from Buddha: Red Chapter, Nara
Tokyo University of the Arts Intermedia PRIZE Exhibition, Ibaraki

三宅 珠子　Miyake Suzuko　
Currently enrolled in the Global Art Practice program at Tokyo University of the Arts and was raised in the Tohoku region. Her work centers on the perspectives of people who live in close connection with the land while listening to the voices of non-human others. Since 2019, she has been researching witch cultures in Japan and Romania. Working primarily with natural materials, she creates installations and photographs, and also designs stage sets and costumes for butoh performances. She considers the act of listening to unseen others as a form of “prayer,” and her practice involves engaging with these invisible presences through creation, producing works as a form of response. Using her own body as a medium, she returns what she receives to the world. Like water falling to the earth, becoming rain, and cycling through again, she values the interconnectedness of all things in a circular flow.
Activities in the Past Three Years
2022 Work in Progress Exhibition, Intermedia Art, Tokyo University of the Arts
2023 The 71st Graduation/Completion Exhibition, Intermedia Art, Tokyo University of the Arts
Școala de-Acasă Hundorf (SAH) SHOWCASE, Mureș County, Romania
2024~ Dramaturgy, stage and costume design, for Yubusha

【Curator Profile】
Anqi Li
Born in 1994 in Xiangtan, Hunan, China / Canadian
She graduated with Bachelor of Arts, Honours Business Administration from Ivey Business School from Western University in London, Canada and with Bachelor of Fine Arts with Distinction, Criticism & Curatorial Practice from OCAD University in Toronto, Canada. She is currently enrolled in the master’s program at the Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts.
Her previous curatorial projects include Tea Leaves（Project Space at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2023), Refiguring (Clark Centre for the Arts, 2023), Joy. Sorrow. Anger. Love. PRIDE. — A Celebration of Toronto Pride, from 1970 to Present, Collision Gallery, 2023, Flowing Still (Xpace Cultural Centre, 2022), Koō-suru at Aizumi Art Museum (2024) and When Does Sound Become Sound? at Chinretsukan Gallery (2025).

Katrin Bjoerg Gunnarsdottir
Born in 1994 in Akureyri, Iceland
She graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at the Iceland University of the Arts in 2021, focusing on the exploration of sound as material. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Curatorial Studies at Tokyo University of the Arts.
Her previous curatorial projects include In Between Fixed Points of Observation at ATRIUM Tsutaya Ginza SIX (2023), Koō-suru at Aizumi Art Museum (2024), When Does Sound Become Sound? at Chinretsukan Gallery (2025) and My Space at Akureyri Art Museum (2025).