Mika Tajima

Biography

Mika Tajima was born in 1975 in Los Angeles, California, and lives and works in New York. Taking international political, social, and economic points of reference as her inspiration, Tajima employs sculpture, painting, installation, and performance in her conceptual practice.

She does in-depth research on topics—such as Herman Miller’s Action Office furniture line and the international price of gold—before translating her findings into physical objects that articulate and critique the ways that these things affect human lives. An example of Tajima’s interest in the labor and production that goes into filmmaking, the 2009 work Today is Not a Dress Rehearsal took the form of an active film set, in the lobby of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.