SEEING THE INVISIBLE - Solo exhibition by Riki Nihongi, Curated by Beatrice Cordaro
VisualSpace Gallery 3352 Dunbar Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6S 2C1
Riki Nihongi, “Seeing the invisible,” 2025
(courtesy of the Gallery)
Seeing the Invisible is a poetic reflection on perception—a quiet yet powerful investigation conveyed through the photography of Riki Nihongi, a Japanese artist who entrusts light and shadow with the task of revealing what often escapes ordinary sight.
In an era overwhelmed by visual excess, which tends to dull the gaze, Nihongi leads us—with both precision and gentleness—toward a new paradigm of seeing: no longer the mechanical act of looking, but the mindful gesture of observing.
The series, created entirely within indoor environments, makes use of controlled settings to emphasize subtle atmospheric shifts and the interactions between light, objects, surfaces, and voids.
Shot in 8x10 format and using a deliberately soft-focus lens, the images possess a suspended, dreamlike quality that dissolves the contours of the real and opens gaps in perception.
This softness is not a flaw, but rather an aesthetic of the threshold—where what is seen and what is sensed merge, inviting the viewer to explore the realm of the invisible.
The curatorial vision shaping this experience is by Beatrice Cordaro, an Italian art historian and curator with a solid international background, known for her inclusive and dialogical approach.
Her practice follows a theoretical line inspired by thinkers such as Hans Ulrich Obrist, for whom curating is never a one-way act, but an open system—a platform that facilitates the encounter between artwork, artist, and audience.
Cordaro approaches exhibition design not as a mere spatial arrangement, but as a relational language: each exhibition is a living moment, a space of suspension awaiting the viewer’s activation.
In Seeing the Invisible, this becomes an invitation to deep contemplation, to the suspension of judgment, to a reawakening of the gaze as a tool of knowledge.
Curation thus becomes experience, and experience turns into shared aesthetic memory.
Exhibition dates: April 29 – May 4, 2025
Venue: Visual Space Gallery, 3352 Dunbar Street @17th Ave., Vancouver
Information:
p. 604.559.0576
e. info@visualspace.ca