A.A. Murakami is a Tokyo and London-based artist duo formed by Alexander Groves (British, b. 1983) and Azusa Murakami (Japanese, b. 1984). Working across sculpture, film and immersive installation, they use fog, plasma and bubbles instead of screens or projections to create what they call “Ephemeral Tech” — unnatural phenomena built from real materials. Their work explores themes of regional identity and the future of resources in an age of globalisation.
Groves studied art and Murakami studied architecture. They met on a postgraduate product design course and began working together as Studio Swine in 2011. Their practice grew out of an interest in materials and how humans might coexist with the natural world less destructively. That drove research trips such as collecting plastic waste at sea for their first collaborative project, Sea Chair, a chair made from marine plastic melted down aboard a boat. They established the A.A.Murakami studio in 2020. The duo's films have been recognised at Cannes. Their work has also entered the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Vitra Design Museum in Germany and M+ in Hong Kong.
