Shiona Shimizu

WINDOWnoMA

She is a designer who creates interactive, experience-based spaces that explore the magical beauty of light and shadow. Her work focuses on designing immersive environments that encourage emotional and sensory engagement through atmosphere, movement, light and spatial interaction. She aims to become a museum and exhibition designer who creates spaces centred on participation and experience rather than traditional didactic text-based displays. Instead of simply presenting information, her approach invites visitors to explore, feel and form personal interpretations through direct interaction with the space.

WINDOWnoMA reflects this design philosophy through an immersive installation that explores the relationship between two cultural traditions of the window: stained glass and Japanese shoji screens. Although both shape light, their approaches are fundamentally different. Stained glass transforms light through vivid colour, reflection and movement, while shoji screens soften and diffuse light to create calmness and closeness. By bringing these contrasting traditions together, the installation creates an environment where different atmospheres coexist in harmony.

At the heart of the project lies the Japanese concept of 'ma'. This represents ‘the space in between’, shaped by presence, silence and atmosphere. Rather than communicating through text alone, the installation encourages visitors to physically and emotionally experience light, shadow, colour and sound through their own movement within the space.

The project also reflects a vision of the future museum as a place centred on immersion, participation and personal interpretation rather than passive observation. In an age where information is constantly accessible digitally, WINDOWnoMA proposes the museum as a sensory and emotional experience that cannot be replicated through screens alone.

WINDOWnoMA

Programmes

Feedback component