Seamless Paper to Installations

Corner Gallery
University of Virginia School of Architecture
Charlottesville, VA

February 20-March 13, 2026

Seamless Paper to Installation recreates Nishikawa’s Brooklyn studio, which serves as the artist’s installation laboratory. Overhead cables suspend sculptural studies and mockups, whose creation begins by transforming waste seamless paper— thick, non-reflective matte paper used as backgrounds for photography, videography, and displays—into pulp and then a clay-like sculpting material that presents saturated colors in the final artwork. Consisting of 26 mobiles from Nishikawa’s work since 2021, the installation combines greens, yellows, and orange elements that bounce and turn while balanced by wires, responding to the changing air currents created by the movement of the viewers through the space.

Seamless Paper to Installation is part of UVA School of Architecture’s Spring 2026 exhibition and public program Leftovers: Rethinking Waste in Design, which invites the University community to rethink how we make, reuse, and imagine materials—and more holistically, environments—in a time of climate urgency.

Photo by Tom Daly Photography