119th metaPhorest Seminar
January 9, 2026 (Fri.) 19:00–20:40
119th metaPhorest Seminar by Shunsuke Yasumura
This event will be primarily in Japanese, but questions and comments in English are also welcome.
For the January 9 metaPhorest Seminar, we are pleased to welcome designer Shunsuke Yasumura as our guest speaker. He will discuss the design of behaviors and interactions that emerge from the arrangement of "phenomena" and events.
Together with metaPhorest member Shiryu Kirie, Yasumura worked on the Mantis Shrimp Mokugyo project, featured in Culture and Biology Vol. 03. Drawing on the background of this project, he will also reflect on the process of giving form to a project and bringing ideas into existence.
Date & Venue
January 9, 2026 (Fri.) 19:00–21:00 Waseda University Research Facility for Advanced Biomedical Sciences (TWIns), 3rd Floor, Seminar Room 2 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Wy23SqPPMo3P7V8JA
ONLINE
This seminar can also be held online. Zoom Link
👉 Read the article "The Mantis Shrimp Is a Mokugyo, the Mokugyo Is a Mantis Shrimp"
https://cultureandbiology.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Vol03-2-1-mokugyo-1.pdf
Shunsuke Yasumura
Graphic and motion designer. After completing his M.A. in the Department of Expression Engineering, Graduate School of Fundamental Science and Engineering, Waseda University, in March 2025, he entered the doctoral program at the same institution. His research explores how "phenomena prior to function" hidden within everyday life and nature can be incorporated into media technologies and creative practices. In his spare time, he enjoys stacking stones by riversides.
Shiryu Kirie
Born in 1991. Ph.D. in Agricultural Science. Graduated from the Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo.
Since joining metaPhorest in 2015, Kirie has been interested in biological forms and the relationships between plants and humans. In a project tracing the origins of the water lilies depicted by Claude Monet, he conducted fieldwork in France and employed morphological modeling and DNA analysis, producing both artworks and academic publications. His practice integrates perspectives, contexts, and methodologies from botany and agricultural science.
He currently works at a biotechnology company, where he is involved in biological-material prototyping and industrial applications of biological data. He is also an editorial member of the web magazine Culture and Biology.
Selected exhibitions include EarthCombinatoria: A Laboratory of Horticulture and Art, a group exhibition with Shota Ishida and Shiryu Kirie at Kumagusuku, Kyoto (2022).