Drinking the Sky, in Turin – Interview With Aki Inomata

From hermit crabs to clouds generated inside a glass of water; a conversation with the Japanese artist who uses biology, craft, and technology to remind us that we are not at the center of the world, but part of a shared ecosystem.

This interview with Aki Inomata was originally written and published by me in Italian on Artribune, one of Italy’s leading magazines for contemporary art. This article is a more extended version of that publication. You can read the original Italian version here

“I hope people feel they are part of nature, not separate from it.”
Aki Inomata

At Artissima 2025 in Turin, Aki Inomata stands in front of a row of glasses of water in which a white filament draws suspended clouds. Thinking of Yesterday’s Sky “writes” the clouds using water, milk, and a secret thickening ingredient. What truly struck me, however, was watching people drink that sky, transforming time into a physical, almost intimate experience.

For years, Inomata (Tokyo, 1983) has been working in a liminal zone where making is no longer solely human: hermit crabs choosing shells 3D-printed for them, mollusks that register the wounds of a tsunami on their own shells, a practice that moves between textile techniques and “hacked” 3D printers. Her work, located between bio-art and new media, is above all posthuman; the artist as mediator of ecologies, using technology not to spectacularize nature, but to make it legible and to experiment with protocols of coexistence. From here this conversation begins, expanding from the work seen at Artissima to her collaborations with biologists and scientists and to the role of Japanese culture, small animals, and language in shaping her projects.

Let us start from Artissima 2025 in Turin.

Thinking of Yesterday’s Sky. How did you come to use water and milk to “write” the clouds?

During Covid I looked at the sky every day. Cities had changed; the air was cleaner; yet at the same time I had the feeling that this sky could be lost, that we would not be able to see it like that forever.

From there came the idea of “collecting” the sky, of trying to “take” it into a glass, even while knowing this is impossible. I was searching for a form that would be poetic rather than scientific, yet capable of making us feel that we are part of nature and that every moment is unrepeatable.

I tested many different materials. In the end, water and milk felt the most appropriate. They are everyday materials, linked to the idea of nourishment. The milk, with a thickening agent I prefer not to reveal, becomes the line that draws the cloud inside the water.

In the video we see people drinking that sky. What does this gesture mean to you?

The point is precisely to eliminate the distance between the artwork, the material, and the body. When you drink the contents of the glass, you feel that what you are looking at is no longer “out there”; it is “here and now”, inside you. It is a very simple way to ask the audience to be present in the moment with their body, not only with their gaze.

At the same time, “yesterday” is not only yesterday; it is a metaphor for the past. Each person brings their own memories into the glass; what you drink is not my memory, it is yours. The work changes with every person who passes through it.

For this work you developed a kind of “liquid” 3D printing. How did this tool come about?

I bought a standard 3D printer designed for plastic and took it apart. I replaced some parts so that it could extrude a liquid; in practice I “hacked” the machine and transformed it into something not foreseen in the manual.

For me it is important that every project finds its own method. I never start from the technology that happens to be available; I start from the idea, from the image, and then I search for or invent the necessary tool. In this case, the gesture of “drawing” clouds in the glass would not have been possible by hand. I needed a different kind of precision, and a machine that could continue to do this even without me, in the future.

Much of your work turns invisible processes into traces: the clouds in the glass, the growth of a shell, the behavior of an insect. Do you think of your works as instruments of measurement or as poetic translations of experience?

For me they are both. I am very interested in the way time leaves traces in matter; for example, in the growth lines of mollusks. But I do not want to do science; I always work in a poetic space.

I like the idea that a work can record an event; a sky, an earthquake, the gesture of an animal; and at the same time translate that event into something we can feel, listen to, and touch. I do not seek total accuracy; I seek an emotional fidelity.

You have become widely known for Why Not Hand Over a “Shelter” to Hermit Crabs?, where hermit crabs inhabit 3D-printed shells with city skylines. How did that project begin?

It began in 2009, when I took part in an exhibition called No Man’s Land in the former French Embassy in Tokyo. I discovered that the land of the embassy was French property, then would return to Japan, and in the future would again belong to France. This oscillation of ownership made me reflect on nationality, borders, and identity.

I thought of hermit crabs; animals that do not produce their own shells, but “borrow” someone else’s house and change it throughout their lives. I scanned some shells with CT and designed new ones with the silhouettes of cities such as Tokyo and Paris, which I then printed in 3D. The hermit crabs chose whether to enter or not; they were free to move from one city to another.

Only later did I realize how similar this was to the human condition; to migrations, to changing passports, to feeling at home in multiple places.

When you work with other living beings, how do you think about the ethics of these collaborations? Are there lines you do not want to cross?

Yes, ethics are fundamental. Whenever I collaborate with animals, I work together with biologists or researchers specialized in that species. I always ask if the project is safe for them; I want to be sure that I do not cause stress or harm.

For the hermit crabs, for example, we studied their behavior. The shells are designed so that they are compatible with their needs, and at any moment they can choose to abandon them. The idea of “shared authorship” also applies here. I am not forcing them to do something; I prepare a context in which they can act according to their own nature.

In your works small animals often return: hermit crabs, birds, insects such as the minomushi. How much does Japanese culture and language have to do with this?

I think it has a lot to do with it. In Japan we are used to paying attention to small creatures; it is both a cultural and a linguistic sensitivity. You can already see it in the names. The hermit crab is yadokari (yado means “house” or “lodging”), the minomushi is literally the “insect with a mantle”, from mino, a traditional cloak. In these words there is already an image, a way of seeing, and my projects often arise from there.

I like that there is no rigid hierarchy between humans and small animals; many people perceive them as close, almost endearing, not as something to eliminate, and this influences my work. When I present it in Europe or elsewhere I sometimes have to add explanations, because not everyone knows these insects or their cultural weight. Yet precisely this gap, what is lost and what is gained when a work travels, is an interesting part of the process for me.

In another project you collaborated with a biologist to study mollusks after the tsunami in Japan. What did you discover and how did you transform it into an artwork?

I worked with Professor Kenji Okoshi, a biologist who has been studying bivalve mollusks for many years in a coastal area affected by the tsunami. I accompanied him on field surveys and then transformed the knowledge that emerged from his research into my artwork. It’s important to emphasize that the scientific results I’m about to describe are the outcome of Professor Okoshi’s work, which he has been carrying out since the very beginning.

When we looked at the shells under the microscope, we noticed something striking: the growth lines a bit like tree rings, but on a daily scale, one line per day, show that, at the moment of the tsunami, growth suddenly stops for about two weeks. Then, for the mollusks that survive, it resumes in an accelerated way: with fewer individuals competing for food, they grow much more quickly.

In my artistic practice, I translated these lines into images and then into sound, as if they were a paper record that could be “played” on a turntable. For me, it is a way of listening to how an ecosystem responds to trauma, not only through data, but also through a sensory experience.

Many artists fear that technology might overshadow the meaning of their work. How do you keep technology at the service of the idea?

I believe the key is always to start from the question, not from the tool. For me, technology is only a means to make visible processes that would otherwise remain invisible; the growth of a shell, the movement of a cloud, the behavior of an insect.

In Japan, technology is very present in everyday life; this probably makes me more at ease with certain tools. But in the end everything comes down to one thing: if a device does not add depth to the project, I do not use it. I prefer to combine ancient techniques and digital tools rather than rely on a special effect.

If you could design a single ideal room as a “laboratory of time”, what would be inside?

I would like a room in which the audience can perceive multiple times at the same instant: glasses with skies from different days, videos and documentation of the projects with animals, sound traces of the mollusks, objects that reveal the “behind the scenes” of the processes. I would like people to leave with the sensation of being immersed in a network of times; their own, that of animals, of the climate, and of technology.

What do you hope the public will carry away from your work in the coming years?

I hope people will feel that they are part of nature, not separate from it; that they will sense how even minimal choices affect other living beings and the environments we share. If, through the hermit crabs’ shells, the clouds in the glasses, or the shells after the tsunami, they manage to reflect on the relationship between home, identity, time, and responsibility, then for me “it has made sense”.

A method for staying in the world

In a historical moment when we speak so much about artificial intelligence, ecological crisis, and the decolonization of knowledge, Inomata offers a concrete stance: not to replace life with the digital; to use the digital in order to cohabit with life. Her works do not ask us only to look, but to participate; to drink the sky, to imagine our own identity as a shell that can change, to recognize that even the smallest bodies carry memory.

Perhaps the most motivating aspect of her work is precisely this: it reminds us that we are not external spectators of the climate crisis or technological transformations; we are inside the same water in which the cloud is drawn. And every gesture, every choice of care or indifference, will leave a trace; in a shell, in a sky, in a glass that one day someone else will drink in our place.

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