Biography
Emi Kodama is a Japanese-Canadian artist from Vancouver and has been living and working in Belgium since 2008 when she started the post-graduate program at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK).
Through a multidisciplinary practice that includes writing, performance, and installation, Emi layers elements of daily life with dreams and memories to create stories that you can explore and expand. Her work blends your inner world with hers. She wants to give you the opportunity to spend time in your mental space – for you to be curious, ask questions, and realize the power of your imagination.
Central to Emi’s work is storytelling that cinematically guides you through your imagination. Her stories are based on the everyday and are travels to different destinations in your mental world. They often explore her personal connections to Canada, Japan, and Belgium – the way these places intersect and diverge, and her search for home between them.
As she reads her stories aloud, viewers are often unaware of their own physicality while listening; however, you are always two bodies, your physical one and your imagined one. If you visualize yourself climbing a mountain, it’s an imaginary body that carries you.
Through embodied storytelling, Emi’s work draws your inner and outer worlds closer together to create a narratively immersive experience. With consideration for your physical presence, she creates environments that complement the text and engage the senses through light, sound, motion, and heat.
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Photo: Nick Chesnaye
In residentie A tender roller coaster ride
05.01.2026 – 11.01.2026
In this performance, one audience member is invited to listen to a story while being gently moved by two performers (including me) in a choreography. You are blindfolded and asked to surrender to the experience by relaxing. As we tell you a story, we move your body while you are standing, sitting, and lying. Being put in motion has a dream-like quality because your muscle memory is triggered, and it evokes a body in your imagination that is foreign and familiar at the same time.
You embody different characters in an intimate and participatory way. You drink some tea, you scratch your nose. This performance suggests transformation, yet remains ephemeral, existing only in your mind and body. I’d like you to feel at ease – everything unfolds within the privacy of your inner world.
In this intimate encounter, you enter the story world through language, your body, and your senses. There is a sensation that we, the performers, envelop you through our physical presence, voices, and touch. Our mutual presence emphasizes the present and invites you to focus on the sensory experience.