Kei Ito: Everything Time Touches
Kei Ito
September 4 – October 18, 2026
This exhibition brings together recent works by Kei Ito that further his ongoing investigation into inherited trauma, bodily memory, and the material traces of history. His photographic practice unfolds as a durational and environmental process, shaped as much by time and contingency as by intention. Ito approaches his work as a performance, prioritizing the process over the completed image.
Across the exhibition, light, shadow, and exposure are joined by less conventional elements ––organic materials, chemical reactions, language, and sound–– each contributing to a practice that resists simple permanence. Images emerge and dissolve; words repeat and reconfigure; signals overlap and interfere.
At its core, Ito’s practice is concerned with how history is transmitted and transformed. Drawing from personal and collective registers, his work confronts global conditions shaped by power and violence, tracing the afterlives of trauma as they persist across bodies, materials, and landscapes. In this way, the work considers the multilaterality of such histories, where destruction and resolution coexist in uneasy relation.
Curated by Fabiola R. Delgado, Everything Time Touches frames memory not as something meant to be preserved intact, but, just like light, be set in motion, fractured, and continually reconfigured.
ARTIST BIO
Kei Ito is an interdisciplinary artist whose work centers on utilizing the conceptual framework of photography to visualize the invisible. Primarily employing camera-less photographic techniques, performance, and artifacts—including c-print sunlight exposures, material-based processes, and site-responsive interventions—Ito creates large-scale installations that excavate hidden histories.
As a third-generation atomic bomb survivor living in the United States, Ito draws on his generational history as a series of case studies, addressing nuclear history, intergenerational memory, and environmental trauma. His work often engages the language of monuments and memorials, initiating a process of healing while inviting audiences to confront complex social and historical conditions.
Ito’s work has been widely exhibited internationally and is held in institutional collections including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Norton Museum of Art, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Candela Collection, Johns Hopkins University, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Georgia Museum of Art, and Royal Ontario Museum. His work has been featured in publications such as BBC, The Washington Post, and Hyperallergic, and he has participated in prominent residency programs including Light Work and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts.
Website: kei-ito.com
Instagram: @kei.ito.art
CURATOR BIO
Fabiola R. Delgado is an independent curator and cultural producer from Venezuela, based in Washington DC. A former political asylum seeker with a background in International Human Rights law, her curatorial practice is grounded in a sustained commitment to justice. She critically engages questions of memory, objecthood, power, and social responsibility, developing projects as spaces of reflection and collective understanding. Through a storytelling-driven approach, her work reexamines dominant migration narratives, while amplifying the complexities of contemporary diasporic realities. R. Delgado is a recipient of the first US R.A.O. National Arts Futures Fellowship, as well as Fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. She’s worked with institutions such as the Hirshhorn Museum, National Museum of American History, Brooklyn Museum, Smart Museum of Art, Washington Project for the Arts, Times Square Arts, apexart NY, and the FUNDRED Project with MacArthur “Genius” Mel Chin. Her projects have been featured in Hyperallergic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BmoreArt Magazine, Artishock Magazine, and Arte al Día, among other publications.
Website: fabiolardelgado.com
Instagram: @fabiola.rdelgado