Kioto Aoki (青木希音) is a Chicago-based artist, educator and musician, whose studio practice navigates propositions of spatial and visual acuity to consider the presence of the body in space. She works through applied and conceptual methodologies of material-based inquiries integrate architectural, biographical and geographical histories through analogue image-making processes. Interlaced the traditions of the still and the moving image and accentuates the inherent connection of the frame, sequence and time between the two mediums. Aoki is also the 5th generation of the Toyoakimoto house, an okiya (geisha house) performing arts family from Tokyo with roots dating back to the Edo period. Standing on the professional stage from the age of 7, and studying under father Tatsu Aoki (Toyoaki Sanjuro), she continues the family legacy as musician on taiko and tsuzumi; and under her stage name Toyoaki Chitose (豊秋千東勢) when on shamisen. Working within traditional and experimental contexts, Aoki sustains this musical lineage traversing geographical and cultural boundaries.
Aoki’s work is held in the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Library and private collections. Musical projects include solo and collaborative albums released by Asian Improv Records and FPE Records, Yoko Ono’s SKYLANDING, Tatsu Aoki’s The MIYUMI Project, Experimental Sound Studio’s Sonic Pavilion Festival, and the Soundtrack series at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She has performed and exhibited at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), the Chicago Cultural Center, 6018|North (Chicago), Gallery Kobo Chika (Tokyo, Japan), The Lab (San Francisco), and the Barbican Centre (London); among others.
Bio as of 2025
