ARTIST

Mai Suzki is exploring "living art" through fashion, craft, and spatial installation.

Her practice explores the body as both protection and weapon, examining how identity is constructed, concealed, and performed in contemporary culture.

Born in Tokyo, she is among the first to develop fully spherical forms of Kumiko, a traditional Japanese woodworking technique historically confined to flat structures. By integrating this craft with digital fabrication, she creates unique sculptural and wearable systems that expand Kumiko into spatial and bodily dimensions.

Her work is rooted in a personal inquiry into dualities — protection and exposure, attraction and defense, authenticity and performance. She approaches the body as a coded interface, where meaning is not fully explained but selectively revealed.

Drawing from the Japanese aesthetic concept of iki, she interprets it as a quiet intelligence that sustains expression within constraint, continuously questioning what constitutes true richness today.

Alongside her artistic practice, she has a background in design engineering and strategic planning, including experience at Dentsu (an advertising agency).

She has been selected for Designart Tokyo U30 (2023) and the Emerging Fashion Leaders Program (2024), and her work has been featured in international media including NHK world, DEZEEN and designboom.