Kyoko Michishita is a Japanese artist, writer, and translator based in Tokyo. With her belief in pacifism, feminism and art, she has been writing and translating books and articles for almost four decades. Born in Kholmsk, Sakhalin, in 1942, she and her family escaped to Hokkaido, Japan the year after the end of World War II. She studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin, graduating in 1967. From 1970 through 1997 she served as the Arts Program Specialist of the Tokyo American Center, where she presented work by Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Jonas Mekas, Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, and many others.

In the 1970s Michishita was an early member of the collective Video Hiroba, and began producing her own films and videos in 1974. Her video Being Women in Japan: Liberation within My Family (1973-74) is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), and her other films and videos have been screened at many festivals, galleries, and museums across Japan and internationally. She has published several Japanese translations of work by and about Gloria Steinem, Georgia O’Keeffe and many others. Her own books include the essay collection Sensual Life (1980), the autobiographical nonfiction Farewell to Sakhalin (1995), and the novel The Blue Hour (2008).

bio by Jesse Cumming

Artist Code: 2137