The New Museum presents the US institutional debut of London- and Tokyo-based artist Umi Ishihara (b. 1993, Tokyo).
Marking the return of Screens Series, the New Museum presents the US institutional debut of London- and Tokyo-based artist Umi Ishihara (b. 1993, Tokyo). This program brings together three recent works: Gravity and Radiance (2021), Thundergod (2024), and Nocturnal Melody (2026), her most recent film commissioned by Gasworks, London. Across these works, Ishihara combines intimate observation, personal and collective histories, and elements of the surreal to explore experiences of precarity, desire, and belonging, and the ways communities take shape around them.
Ishihara’s experimental narrative films weave personal memory together with broader social realities. Shaped in part by an upbringing immersed in Japan’s underground nightlife and free-rave culture, her practice moves fluidly between fiction and documentary. She often works in close collaboration with non-professional actors, local residents, and people from her immediate surroundings. Through these encounters, her films portray distinct experiences of community and alienation, centering on lives and narratives that unfold outside dominant social structures.
Ishihara’s work has been exhibited and screened internationally at institutions including Gasworks, London; the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London; BFI Southbank, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the National Museum of Art, Osaka; and Fukuoka Art Museum. She has also participated in major international film festivals and biennials, including the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Locarno Film Festival, and the 2026 Busan Biennale. Most recently, she was selected for the 2026 Locarno Filmmakers Academy and the 2026 CHANEL X BIFF Asian Film Academy, and received a 2024 GQ Global Creativity Award.
Nocturnal Melody will be screened in the New Museum Forum every Saturday and Sunday in October from 11am–6pm.
Umi Ishihara is a London and Tokyo based artist and filmmaker whose experimental narrative films bring together social realities and personal memories. Moving between fiction and nonfiction, her work examines the lived histories of marginalized people and communities, often focusing on forms of collective life that exist outside dominant social structures. She frequently works in collaboration with local residents, people from her immediate surroundings, and non-professional actors. In 2022, Ishihara founded the art platform Flatline City, which spotlights new forms of community emerging at the intersections of education, music, and art.
New Museum