Shiho Kito is Japanese photographer currently based in Gandhinagar, India, whose work also takes her to Japan and the UK where she teaches, writes and curates on photography. Having been awarded one-year fellowship from Government of Japan, she has based her practice at the National Institute of Design (NID) in India since January 2014.

She studied photography at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music and the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, England and completed her MA in photography from London College of Communication in 2011. Shiho’s work was first exhibited at Crane Kalman Brighton in the Cream: Graduate Showcase in 2010, showing images from her on-going ‘pikari’ series. Since then, her work has been exhibited and published internationally, including in the UK, Japan, and India.

‘pikari’ is an onomatopoeia in Japanese, which means ‘shining’ or ‘flashing’. The idea for pikari came from ‘star-navigation’, the ancient technique of Polynesian sailors who would find their location and direction guided only by the natural environment. Since leaving Japan, Shiho has used lights in cities all over the world to find her own ‘path’.

Shiho’s photographs have been created using a large-format camera with 20-80 minute exposure time. Shiho won the Prime Minister’s Initiative Fund from the British Council and has worked on the ‘pikari’ project mainly in Ahmedabad, India, since 2008. Most recently, her work was part of a touring exhibition around India of five emerging Japanese photographers under the theme of light. The show toured Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru across 2013/14. Shiho was recently a finalist in the 6th 1_Wall Photography Award by Recruit Co. Ltd Japan and was given an Honourable Mention in the Magenta Flash Forward Awards covering the UK, USA and Canada.