Weaving Stories with “Photographs and Words”
From Saturday, February 7 to Saturday, February 21, 2026, GARDE Gallery will host the solo exhibition “Things That Will One Day Be Scorched and Shine” by artist Isana Shinomiya.
This exhibition consists of a 50-minute film, a 140-page photobook, and exhibition panels that combine these elements. Photographs and moving images can convey “emotion” more intuitively than words. This work, Things That Will One Day Be Scorched and Shine, uses music instead of dialogue. It was created with the aim of forming an exhibition space that speaks in a “non-verbal way,” inspired by the perspective of a deaf girl.
Shinomiya, who has long woven narratives through photography and words, depicts memories drifting through light and shadow, and figures who, while carrying their wounds, continue to face forward.
Artist Statement
In 2022, I chose to take a sign language class as part of my general education at university. Among my friends was a senior who was deaf, and I began to feel that I wanted to communicate more deeply. Around that time, I started to want to create a story with a deaf girl as its protagonist, and I had opportunities to listen to the experiences of people directly involved.
While it is different from being unable to hear, I myself live with an illness. I often feel that my own world is cut off from the outside world, that my thoughts do not come across well, and there are many moments when I end up giving up on communication. The friends who reached out to me in those moments helped dismantle those barriers in many different ways. Their presence is reflected in the male character in this work.
In my previous works, I have often focused on the scars of the heart. In this new work, I wanted to go one step further and portray the act of cherishing those scars. And if there is someone who, for whatever reason, cannot step out into the world, I came to want to create a story that might gently help them take that first step.
Isana Shinomiya
Artist Profile
Shinomiya Isana
Photographer. Born and raised in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. Graduated from the Photography Seminar, Department of Art, Faculty of Expression, Wako University. In 2017, Shinomiya began taking photographs out of a desire to preserve her own sensibility as it changed with growth. From 2020, she started working seriously under the name Isana Shinomiya. Drawn to young girls who emit a sharp brilliance despite their incompleteness, she develops her practice around the theme of girlhood. In 2025, with the scars of the heart as her central concept, she directed her first film work.
“Things That Will One Day Be Scorched and Shine” Overview
Period: February 7–21, 2026
Hours: Weekdays 13:00–20:00; Saturdays & public holidays 11:00–20:00
Opening Reception: February 6, 2026 18:30–21:00
Venue: GARDE Gallery（ALLIANCE Building 4F 5-2-1 Minami-Aoyama Minato-ku, Tokyo）
Closed: Sundays
URL: https://www.art-adf.jp/?sl=en
GARDE Design Magazine provides project portfolio, trends in architecture, design, and art, and event information.
The project portfolio and the latest information on GARDE are now available on our official website.
>Click here to visit our project portfolio
>Click here for the latest information on GARDE