Ayako Sakuragi - Carrefour City, 4eme

Ayako Sakuragi
Carrefour City, 34 Rue de Rivoli, 75004 Paris
Unique Work
2022/2026
24 x 20 x 1.5 inches (with frame)
Pinhole Image C-print Unique Work
Signed at back

$4500 (work)
$300 (shipping)

(Note: Final sale, no return allowed)
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Ayako Sakuragi
Supermarket

Friday April 25th Through Thursday May 14th, 2026
Opening Thursday April 24th 6pm to 8pm

The Fridge is delighted to present “Supermarket" the second U.S. solo exhibition of the talented Ayako Sakuragi.

“I would like to sow a seed of doubt about our everyday perception”

Ayako Sakuragi takes on the surface of reality, tracking the richness of a world concealed from the naked eye. The supermarket chains Monoprix, Franprix and Carrefour in Paris provide her preferred, and surprising terrain. She feels that these ordinary spaces with no particular aesthetic appeal are saturated with commercial information. She nevertheless uncovers their mystery, armed with only her pinhole camera. “I exposed each shot very slowly in order to confront the invisible world, capturing a space of light in movement.” Thanks to this particular technique of long exposure, the artist accumulates time, dilates it, and gains access to a new space-time continuum.

(Above: Excerpt from The Art of Color, Prix Dior de la Photographie et des Arts Visuels pour Jeune Talents)

The pinhole camera, pierced by a simple hole, is a primitive photographic device capable of producing an image without a lens, inside an opaque box. Through my pinhole images, I question what we believe we see in everyday life. Our perception of the world is partial, shaped by visual habits and by a deeply human perspective.
For me, photography becomes a tool to suspend this perspective. By using the pinhole camera and extremely long exposure times, I slow down time in order to make perceptible what usually remains invisible.

Biography

Born in 1978, Ayako Sakuragi studied French literature at Sophia University in Tokyo, then fashion design at Studio Berçot in Paris. After working for eleven years at Comme des Garçons, she returned to artistic studies. She received her Master’s degree from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2021 and graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (DNSAP) in 2022.  

She was a finalist for The Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents in 2024, as well as for the Sisley Prize of the Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2025. Her work 108 Days is part of the collection of the ARTER Museum (Istanbul). She is currently pursuing a PHD at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles. She is also an artist in residence at La Capsule – Résidence Création Photo in Le Bourget, and continues her practice and experiments between Paris and Arles.  

For her, the camera is a device of non-human perception: devoid of consciousness and intention, it arbitrarily cuts out a fragment of space-time. This gesture can make us see the world differently. It is not about representation, but about revelation. What interests her is neither form nor content, but the subtle relationship between existence, invisibility and perception. Her work explores the boundaries of the image and highlights the importance of invisible elements: time and memory.