BILBAO.- From 27 May onwards, Azkuna Zentroa - Alhóndiga Bilbao, Bilbao City Council’s Centre for Contemporary Society and Culture, will be presenting the exhibition My House is your House by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, one of the most prominent figures in contemporary art worldwide.


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The exhibition was presented today by Gonzalo Olabarria, Councillor for Culture and Governance of the Bilbao City Council; the artist Chiharu Shiota; and the exhibition's curator, Tereza de Arruda. The show will remain open until 28 September, 2025.

This is the first solo exhibition in the Basque Country by this artist, known for her monumental installations woven with woollen thread, whose interweaving invite the viewer to immerse themselves in a poetic and dreamlike world. Chiharu Shiota creates her work based on elements of everyday life, such as memories and found or neglected objects.

Curated by the art historian Tereza de Arruda, Shiota’s work uses the colour red and monumental scale to connect the Atrium with the Exhibition Hall in a tour ranging from her beginnings through to her latest installation, exhibited here for the first time. In this selection, Chiharu Shiota has worked together with the Azkuna Zentroa team on the concept of home, or casa/etxea, extending the domestic realm to a public space, in dialogue with the architecture of the Bilbao Alhóndiga. The result, as a site-specific installation, invites the viewer to experience different home settings that connect each visitor with their memories through everyday items.

In the Atrium, monumental red dresses will evoke the body as both a cocoon and a protective skin—concealing and revealing the self. In Japanese culture, red symbolizes life, energy, and the sun, and it is used here to evoke the bloodline, life force, and connection between beings. The dresses allude to a second skin: what we present to the world, without distinctions or privileges. This skin is our protection, the place where we hide, and also the means through which we reveal personal aspects. Above all, it is a metaphor for our own home: our most intimate and personal space, representing protection and trust.

In the gallery space, along with an overview of works produced in the last three decades, Shiota’s installations weave intricate patterns of thread, referencing both traditional weaving and eastern calligraphy. The threads create a complex, expanded drawing that has no clear beginning or end, symbolizing paths, histories, and experiences. Suspended objects, such as clothing and windows, represent absent presences, evoking the fragility of life and the power of memory.

The artist has created a collaborative work as an exclusive installation for Azkuna Zentroa – Alhóndiga Bilbao, in which citizens have shared the essence of their homes through letters and drawings. This installation reflects how individual stories are part of a larger collective story: a story of belonging and change that transcends the individual and speaks to the universal.

Chiharu Shiota (Osaka, Japan, 1972), trained in painting (Kyoto Seika University, 1992-1996) and the visual arts (Braunschweig University of Art, 1997-1999 / Berlin University of the Arts, 1999-2003), lives and works in Berlin.

She has exhibited, inter alia, at Nakanoshima Museum of Art of Osaka; Hammer Museum, Los Ángeles; Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (QAGoMA), Brisbane; ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe; Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, Wellington; Mori Museum of Art, Tokyo; Gropius Bau, Berlin; Art Gallery of South Australia; Yorkshire Sculpture Park, United Kingdom; Kochi Museum of Art; and Osaka National Art Museum. During the first quarter of 2025 she has exhibited at the Grand Palais, Paris.

She has also taken part in numerous international exhibitions such as the Oku-Noto International Art Festival, the Biennale of Sydney, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, the Yokohama Triennale and the SESC Pinheiros of São Paulo. In 2015, Shiota was selected to represent Japan at the 56th Venice Biennale.



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