THANDIWE MURIU タンディウェ・ムリウ

During her residency in Kyoto, Thandiwe Muriu immersed herself in the tradition of Japanese textile craftsmanship. Her journey through Kyoto’s fabric landscape inspired a new chapter of her Camo series, titled More Than Half, where she reflects on themes of belonging and one's place in a community.

Muriu shifts her focus from camouflage to coexistence, anchoring her subjects in the renowned symbol of Japanese culture, the kimono, while setting them against a widely accepted backdrop of ‘Africanness’, the wax textile. By doing so she aims to recognise the experience of Afro-Asian (Blasian) women, whose identities naturally bridge two cultures.
Although multiculturalism has been promoted in recent years in Japan, judgment rooted in appearance continues to draw lines between “Japanese” and “non-Japanese.” Within this context, the duality of the Blasian identity can become a struggle. The term hāfu (half), commonly used in Japan to describe persons with one Japanese parent and one parent of another origin, reflects an assumption of incompleteness rather than wholeness.
Muriu’s portraits assert that both origins form a singular, unified presence, channelling the spirit of 一如 (Ichinyo): the Buddhist term meaning “all things are fundamentally one” and expressing that what may appear divided is, at its core, already whole.

Through her artistic choices and by employing a spectrum of skin tones as her palette, identities overlap, diverge and merge, challenging fixed definitions of purity. In 一如 (Ichinyo), Muriu evokes a world where belonging is not granted by resemblance, but expanded by existence.