Artist Interview: Conversation with Noriko Nakamura

Noriko Nakamura’s practice consists primarily of stone carving, whilst also incorporating organic materials, video work, and watercolour. Her practice is underpinned by an interest in Shinto animism, which proposes that spirits inhabit all objects, places, and elements within the natural world. Nakamura was born in Japan and now lives and works in Castlemaine, on Dja Dja Wurrung Country.

This email exchange between Noriko Nakamura and Eleni James, MAMA Visitor Experience Assistant, occurred in March 2026.

What our bodies bring to us is a work that explores the embodied processes of pregnancy and birth. Can you tell us about the presence/influence of the Mother and the Artist in the conception and delivery of this work? 

Western dualism positions men as the upper, active, rational form that dominates women and the feminine, which is considered a lower, passive and formless matter.

Plato introduced the concept of chora as the space in which forms are "impressed," ensuring the reproduction of these forms. He described chora as the "mother, "matrix", "receptacle of all bodies", and "the nurse of all becoming", in which all things in the universe come into existence.

Chora described an amorphous, formless, and passive space that lacks specific qualities, essence or productivity of its own. This idea views the human reproductive process through male domination. Forms, ideas and male subjectivity are “impressed” on a passive container (the mother). I see women experience bodily transformations throughout their lives, such as menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and menopause. So, I aimed to explore alternative conceptual understandings of the feminine and the mother and suggest to audiences the active, complex possibilities of the female body with my work. 

To that aim, the work offers a compelling perspective that remains elusive in contemporary thought. Science has (many times!) proven the female reproductive system to be intelligent and decisive; to make strategic selection from the genetic material it encounters yet still the idea of the active, diligent, focused sperm racing to penetrate the passive egg persists. It suggests the difficulty that society has in accepting biological narratives that run counter to our cultural ideas. 

You’ve spoken about the significance of your Shinto animistic beliefs in your artistic practice - could you tell us a bit about how those beliefs interact with your choice of material, limestone, and if/how they inform the challenge to Western dualism present in this work?

In Shinto, everything in nature contains Kami, a divine spirit or supernatural life force. Kami resides in animals, inanimate objects, plants, natural phenomena, and geographic features.

Limestone comprises fragments of bones of sea creatures and shells (such as oysters, clams, mussels), algal, faecal, and other organic detritus, and accumulated coral formed over a few million years. As these living organisms die, their shells and bones are crushed by waves and tiny particles settle on the ocean floor. They are then compressed by water. So, limestone is formed from the body of dead ocean-dwelling organisms over a long period and transformed to stone in the sea. I realised that (in the Shinto animistic perspective) dead bodies of living sea creatures are slowly turned into a new life in the water, like a baby growing in amniotic fluid.

My work aims to embrace the material-becoming of limestone to enfold the force of the earth, like pregnancy. I carved my sculptures using only hand tools. As I slowly expose the fossils with rasps and sandpaper, the fossils determine the forms of my sculptures. My art-making process aims to come close to the tempo of the earth, attempting to be a less humanistic timeframe to move beyond the dualistic categorisations set by humans.

I’m curious about the material and the method employed in this work and how they interact. Sculpting from stone is a process of subtraction, from a monolith in which all possible expressions of the idea are present at its inception (or conception). The entire potential is contained within the material. You mentioned that ‘the fossil determines the shape’ of your sculptures, can you tell us about how that revelation unfolds? Did you have specific figures in mind to tell this story? 

In my studio methodology I aim to accommodate the forces of the earth and imbricate mothering, dedication, and a Japanese sensitivity toward our surroundings. After consideration, I decided to depart from using any electrical tools to avoid forcing the limestone to change shape.

In prior bodies of work, I used an electric drill to drill holes or carve out small sections to create large scale sculptures. In this method, the characteristics and tendencies of limestone were less apparent because the electric tool could drill through no matter the quality.

I carved my sculptures using only hand tools: prune saws, chisels, rasps, a mallet and sandpaper. By carving with my hands, only using my own bodily forces, the process became slower and much more difficult. In giving prominence to slowness, I attempted to emphasise my sensitivity towards the material by building an intimate relationship between myself and limestone, like caring for a baby. 

When carving, I incorporate each stone's physical characteristics and quality through an intuitive process. I usually have only a rough design sketch or no plan until I start carving. I don’t measure or draw sketch lines on the stone to create a shape. I instead decide on the forms and the details as I progress because sometimes there are shells and hard fossils in the stone, so it is impossible to carve as I intended. [The final form] is a collaboration between me and the material.

Alongside the work done by hand in What our bodies bring to us, I think of the physical work of parenting. Carrying, holding, wiping, patting, rocking; the parts that are all movement and muscle. Are there any other similarities you notice between the sculptor/mother modes?

Over a nine month period, I carved my limestone sculpture anytime my daughter was away. I carved for six hours when my daughter was at school every day. I tried not to take breaks as much as possible because once I picked her up from school, I needed to stop carving and look after her. I was exhausted. It was like I had taken a long day’s walk with my stone; I had to ice my arms to cool down my muscle for the pain and to avoid swelling of tendons after every session.

I see my processes of being attentive to the characteristics of each stone, the lack of breaks and the physical pain, as analogous to mothering.

What our bodies bring to us has an important component that we've not yet discussed, its distinct narrative properties. The work tells the story of a woman conceiving a child in relationship with slime mould, an amorphous single cell organism that resists neat scientific classification. The sculptures Womb and Womb III show the implantation and development of the exceptional foetus, represented independently in Embryo and brought forth in Birth.

This situates the work in a vast literary context - we think of ancient mythology, in which gods mate with non-human entities to produce demi-divine beings, and the urgent contemporary preoccupation of posthumanism in speculative and science-fiction. What our bodies bring to us realises a posthuman form through an elevated biology, not technology. Can you share some insight into the creative fiction element of this work? Any particular lineages you see through history, or into the future? I'm also curious about where the story sits in your process, in the development of the work as a whole.

My current practice aims to create a novel that examines feminine experiences and subjectivity. I have been developing a narrative around a protagonist, “Kyoko” who is a single mother and anxious about entering menopause. She develops an intimate feeling toward the slime mould that lives on her apartment balcony and masturbates with the spores to conceive a second baby. This story is evoked by my personal experiences and embodied knowledge around pregnancy, birth, and the anxiety of going into menopause. I’m using slime mould as a framework to examine the complexity of women’s bodily transformation.

Slime moulds are primarily content to survive as independent amoebas, or single-celled organisms. When nutrients are insufficient, they join into single supracellular aggression, and some cells convert and alter to produce a "foot" with spores. If they come across a nutrient-rich scape, the spores detach, disperse, and grow to spawn a new lifecycle. A new ecological input or response to the environment activates its systems to change. This new input or response to ecology (rather than established laws) determines their transformation between a phlegm-like form and a fungus-like shape. It interacts with the natural environment and changes its form to survive instead of trying to alter the situation. In this view, slime mould's self-organisation expresses itself through transforming its body. I’m interested in how slime mould shifts the meaning of its own body, changing subjectivity through transformation. I’m using the slime mould's capability for continuous transformation as a framework to investigate women's bodily transformation, for example internalising external input to produce new life in pregnancy.

In my story, the main character has a baby with slime mould to imagine reproduction without the materials from two opposing sexes, ova and sperm, departing from humans’ biological requirement for a new life. The work attempts to think beyond the sexual differences between men and women and expand the posthuman perspective on gender. I seek an alternative model of birth to shift the focus from dualistic oppositions to aspects of care and nurturing. My story also explores reproduction between a human and a non-human entity, referencing Japanese mythology, aiming to transcend time and the limits of patriarchal boundaries.

Womb III (2026) is a large, roughly carved globe with a hole and vines creeping along its external surface. The hole references a white cave that Kyoko carves in her daydream in the story and also represents a womb. The vines symbolise the blood vessels and internal organs and suggest the growth of the slime mould's spore in Kyoko's womb. I created a bronze sculpture inspired by the form of an embryo [to represent] the half slime mould and half human baby in my fictional writing. Through producing more bronze sculptures inspired by unique forms of slime mould, I aim to embrace the stories of transformation embodied within the material itself.

What our bodies bring to us is part of nginha - here and now, celebrating the commissioning of new art and ideas as a vital part of the Museum’s activities.

All images by Jeremy Weihrauch