Born in 1977, Ishikawa, Japan, moved to England at the age of 18 years old to study fine art, focusing on sculpture. Since then he has been interested in the production of time based installations using electronics, lights, multiple media. In the MFA at the Slade School of Fine Art he started using video in his work, still influenced by his background in sculpture, his work in audiovisual interestingly seems to capture 2D images from 3D spaces and objects, rather than cinematographic time and sequence. "Since I think of working in video in sculptural terms, I make the video image as I would a tangible object."

His dreams of fantastic domestic situations, produced in his charming Londinense apartment resemble lucid dreams narrated in a codified language, based in a pictographic alphabet often repeated in his works. Hiraki exhibiting his works worldwide including UK, Japan, USA, Mexico, France and Germany.

Biography
2001-2003 MFA Sculpture, Slade School of Fine Art, University College London
1997-2000 BA(hons) Fine Art, University of East London
1996-1997 Foundation Course, University of East London

Solo exhibitions/screenings
01.08 Hiraki Sawa, Centro de Arte Caja de Burgos, Burgos, Spain
09.07 Hiraki Sawa, Hako, Chisenhale Gallery, London, UK
05.07 Hiraki Sawa, Alberto Peola Gallery, Turin, Italy
03.07 Hiraki Sawa, Going places sitting down, Frist Centre for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee, US
11.06 Hiraki Sawa, Selected Short Works, The Box, Wexner Art Center, Colombus, Ohio, US
08.06 Hiraki Sawa, Sussel Gallery, The College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, US
06.06 Hiraki Sawa, Six Good Reasons To Stay At Home, National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
06.06 Hiraki Sawa, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan
06.06 Hiraki Sawa, Blue Floor, Studio Guenzani, Milan, Italy
05.06 Hiraki Sawa, Dwelling, Franklin Art Works, Minneapolis, Minnesota, US
04.06 Hiraki Sawa, James Cohan Gallery, New York, USA
03.06 Hiraki Sawa, Certain Places, firstsite, Colchester, UK
11.05 Hiraki Sawa, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, USA
10.05 Hiraki Sawa, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan
06.05 Slow Down, PhotoEspana05, Galeria Pilar Parra, Madrid, Spain
04.05 Criterium 63 - Room, mito art tower, Japan
04.05 New Media Series - Hiraki Sawa's Migration, Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, USA
02.05 Hammer Projects - Hiraki Sawa, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA
11.04 Going places sitting down, Hayward Gallery/Bloomberg Artist Commission for Waterloo Sunset, the Dan Graham Pavilion, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
02.04 Hiraki Sawa, James Cohan Gallery, New York, USA
11.03 Dwelling, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, UK
10.03 Hiraki Sawa, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan
07.03 Hiraki Sawa, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK
04.03 Panoramica, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City, Mexico

International art festivals
10.07 12th Biennale de l'Image en Mouvement, Centre pour l'Image Contemporaine, Geneva, Switzerland
09.07 Ars Electronica Festival 2007: Goodbye Privacy, Second City/Marienstrasse, Linz, Austria
10.06 Dual realities, 4th Seoul International Media Art Biennale, Seoul Media City, Seoul, South Korea
05.06 Fast Futures: Asian Video Art, ACAW 2006, Japan Society, New York, USA
03.06 Lovebytes International Festivial of Digital Arts and Media, The Showroom Cinema, Sheffield, UK
11.05 APAP 2005, Anyang, South Korea
09.05 Art circus: Jumping from the Ordinary, Yokohama Triennial, Yamashita Pier, Yokohama, Japan
09.05 Thoughts of a fish in the deep sea, Valencia Biennial, Convent of the Carmen, Valencia, Spain
11.04 Video Zone 2, Herzliya Museum, Israel
10.04 Frieze Art Fair 2004, Regents Park, London, UK
09.03 C'est arrivé demain, Lyon Biennial, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France

Group exhibitions
07.08 Promenades Insomniaques, Passage de Retz, Paris, France
06.08 The Alliance 2, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, Korea
06.08 Kunsträume Schloss Friedberg, Museum im Wittelsbacher Schloss, Friedberg, Germany
04.05 The Alliance, doART, Beijing, China
03.08 Artist File 2008, National Art Centre, Tokyo, Japan
02.08 Video Art/3 Visions: Jenny Perlin, Peter Sarkisian, Hiraki Sawa, Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
01.08 Love and Politics, in a Minor Key, Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, Turkey
10.07 "Have you eaten yet?", National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan
09.07 Beautiful New World - Contemporary Visual Art from Japan, 798 Dashanzi Art District, Beijing, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
08.07 Ghosts in the Machine, 516 Arts/Site Santa Fe, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
08.07 Experimenta Playground, touring group exhibition - Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Australia
08.07 Experimenta Vanishing Point, Sofitel Hotel, Melbourne, Australia
07.07 In Wonderland: Animations by Christine Rebet, Hiraki Sawa & Shahzia Sikander, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
06.07 First Fridays 2007, Fresno Metropolitain Museum, Fresno, California, USA
06.07 La Chaîne - Japan & France Contemporary Art Exhibition, BankART 1929, Yokohama, Japan
06.07 Get It Louder 2007, touring group exhibition ? Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, China
06.07 Thermocline of Art - New Asian Waves, Museum of Contemporary Art, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany
11.06 From Encounter to Encounter: Expounding the Playground, Taipei
Children's Recreation Centre, Taipei, Taiwan
11.06 Fatamorgana, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel
10.06 Dynamic Entropy, Houldsworth Gallery, London, UK
09.06 Negotiating Reality: Recent works from the Logan Collection, Victoria H. Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Denver CO, USA
09.06 Homestories, Kunstverein Grafschaft Bentheim, Neuhausen, Germany
09.06 37seconds programme fifteen, Big Screen Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
09.06 The Other Side of Happiness, SEEN, FACT, Liverpool, UK
09.06 Still Moving: Selected Video by Photographers, Richard L. Nelson Gallery, University of California, Davis, USA
08.06 Enjoyable house, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art / Aichi Arts Centre, Aichi, Japan
08.06 New Acquisitions, Ota Fine Art, Tokyo, Japan
06.06 Selections from the permanent collection, The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, USA
06.06 A season in hell, Danielle Arnaud, London, UK
06.06 Giardino - luoghi della piccola realtà, Palazzo delle arti di Napoli, Naples, Italy
05.06 Pixel visions: Contemporary Videos from Birmingham Collections, The UAB Visual Arts Gallery, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
05.06 Around the world in 80 days, South London Gallery, London, UK
05.06 Recent Acquisitions. Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI, USA
03.06 Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Margulies Warehouse, Miami, USA
03.06 Broken Romanticism, Standpoint Gallery, London, UK
01.06 Unreal realities, Museum of Art, Sakura, Japan
01.06 Anniversary Exhibition, Claudia Delank Gallery, Cologne, Germany
12.05 Fusion: Aspects of Asian Culture in the MUSAC Collection, MUSAC, Castilla y León, Spain
11.05 Video London, Espai Ubu, Barcelona, Spain
10.05 Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Margulies Warehouse, Miami, USA
10.05 to be continued? / jatkuu?, Helsinki Photography Festival 2005, Muu Gallery, Helsinki, Finland
10.05 Wunderkammer - The Artificial Kingdom, The Collection, Lincoln, UK
09.05 Experimenta: Vanishing Point, Margaret Lawrence Galleries at VCA, Melbourne, Australia
08.05 Xanadu Variation, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan
06.05 Pop! Pop! Pop!, gana arts centre, Seoul, South Korea
05.05 The Mind is a horse part 2., Bloomberg Space, London, UK
05.05 Domicile public/privé, Museum of Modern Art, Saint Etienne, France
05.05 Sculpture, James Cohan Gallery, New York, USA
04.05 Building Capacity, Storey Gallery, Lancaster, UK
03.05 Size Matters, Yorkshire Sculpture Part/Longside Gallery, Yorkshire, UK
03.05 Behind Closed Doors, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Scotland
02.05 Land, Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo, Japan
01.05 Rites and rewrites: Borders in Asia, Museum of Contemporary Art, Porte Alegro, Brazil
12.04 Have We Met?. Japan Foundation, Tokyo, Japan
12.04 Episode - 2nd Asia Art Now exhibition, Cheongiu Art Center Gallery, Cheongiu, Korea
11.04 DaDaDa: Strategies against marketecture, temporarycontemporary, London, UK
11.04 Dwellan, Charlottenborg, Copehagen, Denmark
11.04 1 + 1 = 1, Estonian Academy of Arts and Cinema Theater "Sõprus", Tallinn, Estonia 10.04 The Encounters in the 21st Century: Polyphony- Emerging Resonances, 21st Century Museum, Kanazawa, Japan
10.04 Situations construites, Attitudes, Geneva, Switzerland
10.04 Duvel's Eldorado 2, Galerie Drantmann, Brussels, Belgium
09.04 Spin cycle, Spike Island, Bristol, UK
08.04 Flight, LIFT Contemporary, Cherokee, USA
07.04 Back to the Future, Terrace Gallery, Leeds, UK
07.04 Eijanaika! Yes future!, Collection Lambert, Avignon, France
06.04 Tokyo Rabbit Paradise, careof, Milan, Italy
05.04 Akimahen, Maison Folie de Wazemmes, Lilles 2004, Lilles, France
04.04 Volere volare, Placentia Arte, Piacenza, Italy
04.04 art?chitecture, Evo Gallery, Santa Fe, USA
01.04 Wonderful travel agency, Borusan Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
01.04 The 59th Minute, Times Square Astrovision, New York, USA
12.03 Going a journey, Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr Institute, Granville Island, Canada
09.03 Wings of Art, Kunsthalle Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
07.03 Home at last, Terrace Gallery, Leeds, UK
05.03 The Global Arena, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, USA
05.03 Random-ize, Eslite Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan
01.03 Air, James Cohan Gallery, New York, USA
11.02 New Contemporaries 2002, Barbican Curve, London, UK
11.02 Lost and found, Savage Gallery, Portland, USA
09.02 Flawed Idyll, Ashley Gardens, London, UK
09.02 New Contemporaries 2002, Static, Liverpool, UK
07.02 East International 2002, Norwich Gallery, Norwich, UK
09.02 Sukima Project_02, Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan
05.01 TRaP (Tokyo Life), Selfridges, London,UK
06.00 Homeworks, Clerkenwell Green Association, Pennybank Showcase, London, UK
05.00 Constructions, Apt Gallery, London, UK
09.99 Reflection, East London Gallery, UK
01.94 Hikaru, Ugoku, Ayashii, ICC Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

Commissions
11.06 Unseen Park, site-specific video installation as part of the From Encounter to Encounter: Expounding the Playground project, Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei, Taiwan
11.04 Going places sitting down, Hayward Gallery/Bloomberg Artist Commission for Waterloo Sunset, the Dan Graham Pavilion, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
06.04 In Here, Public Programmes Commission from the Hayward Gallery, London, UK

Artist presentations, lectures and workshops
11.06 Workshop with primary school pupils, Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei, Taiwan
10.06 Japanese contemporary art and the market, Panel Discussion, The Japan Foundation, London, UK
05.06 Artist presentation, firstsite contemporary art @ the Minories, Colchester, UK
03.06 Meet the artist - Hiraki Sawa, a conversation with associate curator Kelly Gordon, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, USA
02.05 Artist presentation and group tutorials with students, The Leeds School of Contemporary Art and Design, Leeds, UK
11.04 Artist presentation and discussion with students, Sam Spiegel school of TV and Cinema, Jerusalem, Israel
11.04 Artist presentation, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya, Israel
06.04 Workshop with 8 pupils from St Stephens School, Lambeth, Public Programmes, Hayward Gallery, London, UK

Awards
2006 Decibel Award for Artists
2002 East International Award

Public Collections
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Leon, Spain
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan
Arts Council Collection, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, USA
The Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, USA
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, USA
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, USA