Aki Sasamoto

Grilled Diagrams Performance

Grilled Diagrams marked Aki Sasamoto's first institutional solo exhibition in the UK, comprising a major new installation alongside four live performances. The following documents the performance staged on Saturday 7 February 2026.

Drawing inspiration from televised cooking shows and street food carts, the performance unfolded as a live, improvised act of movement and drawing. It centred around a custom-built, oversized griddle and the seemingly unremarkable yet intricate manipulation of ingredients across its surface, visible through a three-metre-long, angled mirror.

The performance took place within a site-sensitive installation that developed from Sasamoto's observations of daily life and her curiosity about systems and processes, specifically the experience of cooking large quantities of food on outdoor griddles. Incorporating everyday items and contemporary detritus, the meticulously staged installation functioned as a prompt or score for structured improvisation: challenging conventional definitions of sculpture and inviting active participation in Sasamoto's unfolding narrative.

The work incisively probed the tension between disorder and control. Staged as a vivid and digressive monologue, the performance wove together fables, anecdotes and autobiographical fragments, inviting audiences to retune their perceptions of the seemingly mundane.

Commissioned and produced by Studio Voltaire, London, 2026.

Lead Programme Supporters: Japan House London Trust, Shane Akeroyd and FOUNDATION FOUNDATION. Programme Supporters: Henry Moore Foundation and Bortolami Gallery. With additional support from Take Ninagawa. Studio Voltaire’s Programmes are core funded by The Studio Voltaire Council. Studio Voltaire’s 2025-2026 exhibition programme is supported by Cockayne Grants for the Arts.

  1. Aki Sasamoto (b. 1980, Kanagawa, Japan) is a New York-based artist who works in performance, dance, installation, and video and teaches at Yale School of Art’s Sculpture Department.

    Key solo exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (2025); Para Site, Hong Kong (2024); Queens Museum, New York (2023-2024); the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York (2023); The Kitchen, New York (2017); and SculptureCenter, New York (2016). She has participated widely in international exhibitions including the 59th Venice Biennale (2022); Aichi Triennale (2022); Busan Biennale (2022); Okayama Art Summit (2022); Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2016); Yokohama Triennale (2008); and the Whitney Biennial (2010). Sasamoto received the Calder Prize in 2023. 

  2. Aki Sasamoto, Grilled Diagrams, 2026. Installation view, Studio Voltaire, 2026. Commissioned and produced by Studio Voltaire. Image courtesy of the artist, Bortolami Gallery, Take Ninagawa and Studio Voltaire. Photo Sarah Rainer.

  3. Credit Dor Even Chen

Aki Sasamoto, in a black apron, stands in a gallery holding a long silver pole. On the white wall, seven rectangular sheet pans with elastic cords hang vertically. A green artwork with circular patterns hangs on the right wall beneath tall arched windows.

Aki Sasamoto
Grilled Diagrams

Exhibition