Naoko Inuzuka

Flood (Neckpiece), 2015

photo by Jeremy Dillon

 Naoko Inuzuka is a visual artist, a contemporary jeweller and an educator.

     Naoko's art practice is both conceptual and personal, based on her experiences and ideas about migration. She arrived in Melbourne, Australia in 2004 from Tokyo, and her on-going theme is on the idea of 'a place of belonging'. Her materials are dominantly metals and vitreous enamels, to be wearable on a body or installed in spaces. She has won a number of awards and exhibited her works nationally as well as internationally, in the US, Spain, the Netherlands, Estonia and Japan.

     Naoko is also a director of a sunday Japanese community class/school, Aozora Shokudo (Blue-sky Cafeteria) at CERES in Brunswick East in Melbourne. After experiencing as homeroom teachers and a curriculum coordinator at bilingual schools, she decided to create a place for children including Japanese background to feel connected within a community through creative activities and sharing food, in Japanese.