Hiroko Inoue - Inside-Out

Inside-Out presents the fruits of a ten year long investigation into the windows found in various psychiatric institutions, hospitals, sanatoriums, first aid camps, concentration camps and juvenile prisons. In so doing, Hiroki Inoue focuses at the same time on the memories of the scenes where tragic events occurred and the physical spaces where people currently live. The viewer is charmed by the melodious beauty of the monochrome contrast of light and shade that is framed and filtered by the windows while being constantly reminded of the painful confines of institutional  space. A total of 60, thought-provoking, colour photographs are presented one to a page or over double spreads and accompanied by a short essay by Reiko Kokatsu.

Born in Osaka, Japan. After experiencing study in textile and dyeing, as well as anthropology, she started producing sculpturing works in 1995. Particularly, Inoue has been producing her works with a motif of window, from an ordinary residence's to isolated institution's, in various places of the world in order to bring up the issue of border. Taking advantage of being awarded the City of Düsseldorf and Goethe-Institute Kansai Prize at Osaka Triennial in 1988 she started producing her works in Germany from 1999. Since then, she has grew her relationship between German art institutions, her activity includes exhibitions at numbers of museums in many German districts. She had also stayed in Austria for a year as a Special Advisor for Cultural Exchange of Japan's Governmental Agency of Cultural Affairs from 2005. In 2007, while lecturing at Clemson University, South Carolina, she participated in a project of producing public art using only organic materials. Her major solo exhibitions include; FOIL GALLERY in Tokyo, in 2009; Hillside Forum, Tokyo in 2008; Jugendstiltheater, Otto Wagner Spital, Vienna in 2005; Kunstmuseum Alten Post, Mülheim an der Ruhr, among others.