村上華子　Hanako MURAKAMI

1984年生まれ。パリを拠点に活動。東京大学文学部美学芸術学専修、東京藝術大学大学院映像研究科修了。写真の起源や消失したイメージへの関心を起点に、古典写真技法から人工知能（AI）、視線追跡技術（Eye Tracking）までを横断するインスタレーションや映像作品を制作している。近年は、世界最初の写真を撮影したニセフォール・ニエプスの研究を軸に、「見ること」がどのように像を生み出すのかを探究している。初期写真術の再現実験や歴史資料の調査に加え、AIを用いた失われたイメージの再構成、視線データの可視化などを通して、写真以前／以後のイメージのあり方を問い直している。2019年アルル国際写真祭 New Discovery Award ノミネート。近年の主な展覧会に、National Museum of Women in the Arts 日本展（東京、2026）、Guangzhou Image Triennial（広州、2025）、10th Daegu Photo Biennale（大邱、2024）など。2026年にはVilla Albertineフェローとしてニューヨークに滞在し、アメリカ各地の写真コレクションやアーカイヴを調査した。作品はCNAP（フランス国立造形芸術センター）、Getty Museum（米国）などに収蔵されている。

MOMENT Contemporary Art Center is pleased to present Laboratory: Towards Another View, a solo exhibition by Paris-based artist Hanako MURAKAMI, on view from Saturday, August 22 to Sunday, October 25, 2026.

Murakami’s practice is rooted in an interest towards the origins of photography and images that have been lost or can no longer be seen. Working across technologies and media from different periods—including historical photographic processes, artificial intelligence (AI), eye-tracking technology, video, and installation—she explores how images come into being.

This exhibition focuses on early photographs by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce that have not survived. Before producing View from the Window at Le Gras, widely known as the world’s oldest surviving photograph, Niépce had already created a number of images. Those have since been lost, and what remains today are a few brief descriptions in his letters and experimental records.

As we mark the bicentennial of photography since its invention, this exhibition turns once again to these lost images. Drawing on Niépce’s correspondence and records of his experiments, Murakami uses artificial intelligence to generate images that might once have existed, while also attempting to recreate them physically through nineteenth-century photographic materials and processes involving lithographic stones, metal plates, light, and chemicals.

Murakami describes the exhibition as follows:

This is not simply an exercise in historical reconstruction. Through photography, we perceive the world, understand the past, record the present, and imagine the future. To return to the moment when an image first comes into being may offer an opportunity to reconsider how we ourselves see the world today, at a time when new image-generating technologies are questioning the very meaning of the image.　
Laboratory: Towards Another View is an attempt to search for the lost images at the origins of photography. At the same time, it seeks to reopen the field of possibilities that has remained latent since its invention.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 —Hanako MURAKAMI

Ahead of the exhibition, Murakami will undertake a residency and production period from Tuesday, July 21 to Friday, August 21, 2026. Dates on which the production process will be open to the public, together with details of related events, will be announced on MOMENT’s official website and social media channels.

*Event dates and times, speakers, and program details are subject to change. Updates will be announced on MOMENT’s official website and social media channels.