Hong Kong
Exhibition: 
Synesthesia
Aki Lumi x Yuki Onodera

23 May -25 July 2026

Aki Lumi, Shan shui, 2026, Ink drawing, collage on canvas, 82 x 65 cm
 

Yuki Onodera, World is Not Small – 1826, No 20, 2012, Archival pigment print, 85.8 x 110 cm
 

wamono art is delighted to announce an upcoming exhibition presenting the works of two contemporary Japanese artists based in Paris, Aki Lumi and Yuki Onodera.

Aki Lumi’s practice spans photography, drawings, and sketches, through which he explores questions of perception, visibility, and the boundaries between the artificial and the real. His works invite viewers to reconsider what is seen and how visual realities are constructed. Yuki Onodera’s longstanding practice is grounded in a rigorous examination of photography itself. Constantly questioning what photography is and what images can be, she uses the medium experimentally to produce a wide range of works that emerge from these fundamental inquiries. While Lumi and Onodera share the same creative time and space, each artist pursues an independent path shaped by their own philosophy, ideas, and methods of expression.

For this exhibition, Aki Lumi presents new series “Shan Shui – HK”, which reimagines Hong Kong’s urban architecture as monumental mountain forms. Drawing on the foundational Chinese concept of Shan Shui—literally “mountain and water”—the series transforms the cityscape into poetic, landscape-like visions. Alongside this, the exhibition introduces Yuki Onodera’s representative series “The World Is Not Small – 1826.” In this body of work, Onodera continues her exploration of photographic meaning and scale, challenging conventional perceptions of images and the worlds they depict.



By presenting the works of Aki Lumi and Yuki Onodera in the same space, the exhibition creates a mysterious sense of synesthesia, where visual, conceptual, and perceptual experiences intersect. Visitors are invited to engage with the subtle interplay between the two practices and to experience the layered resonance that emerges from their coexistence.

. . .

Aki Lumi

Aki Lumi was born in Tokyo; he currently lives in Paris. Through media such as photography, drawing and drafting, his work inquires into the meaning of man-made things and asks what sort of cognitive processes determine our world. Lumi’s series “The Garden” (which includes 100 works) represents his ideal garden. To make this work, he collected images of forests and jungles from all around the world, “cultivated” them on top of an imaginary building with real plants, and finally made analog photo-collages out of various iconic images and composite images made with a computer. While his work “trace” may appear at first glance to be a map, it is actually a drawing with numerous lines, made only with a compass and a ruler; it can be viewed from any direction. Lumi is also known for his work “traceryscape”, in which he attached insects to photographic negatives of landscape scenes, then drew with a compass and a ruler on the resulting print. This work brings out a new type of two-dimensional landscape. In 1993, Lumi established a studio in Paris; since then, his work has been exhibited in France, Japan, China and other countries around the world.

Recipient of the 1999 International Photography Research Award selected by French photographers and the 2023 Drawing Festival Award held in Saint-Briac, France. Works are held in collections such as the Centre for Contemporary Art at Château de Chaumont, Loire Valley (2015), the Musée de La Roche-sur-Yon, the Centre for Contemporary Art – Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, the French National Institute for Agricultural Research, the Hypoclene Foundation, the Florence Society, the Colette-Tornier Collection, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Haus Mareusay Photography Museum in Amsterdam, and the Presbyterian Foundation in New York.

. . .

Yuki Onodera

Yuki Onodera was born in Tokyo (1962). In 1993, she established a studio in Paris and began to work internationally. Onodera’s experimental work, which does not fit within schemas of “photography,” often poses two questions: what is photography, and what can be done through it? She uses any possible method to realize her works, whether this means taking photographs with a marble inside her camera, or creating a story out of a legend and traveling to the ends of the earth to shoot it. Onodera is known for making two-meter-high prints in the darkroom, or 8m size of collages, and for other original hands-on methods. Her works are presented in the “Elles@contrepompidou”(2009) a big exhibition at Centre Pompidou from the collection.

She won the prestigious awards Kimura Ihei Prize (2003, Japan) and Niépce Prize (2006, France).



Her work is held in collections around the world, including those of Centre Georges Pompidou, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Shanghai Art Museum and The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. Among other locations, her solo exhibitions have been held at The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2005), Shanghai Art Museum (2006), Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2010), The Museum of Photography, Seoul (2010), Musée Nicéphore Niépce, France (2011), Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris (2015) and Centre de la Photographie de Mougins (2022)