About
In our work, counter-mythologies and post-humanist fables play out in moving images, immersive installations and environments, and public artworks. Through our practice, we’ve worked to participate in critical dialogues about our culture, sharing experience and values through storytelling, creative collaboration and writing the future’s history.
Studying film and photography sharpened our view of contemporary mass media, and we’ve often focused on the moving image as a powerful vessel for the kind of popular cultural, political and historical narratives that take on the proportions of mythology.
In addition to robotic motion control systems, infrared and ultra-high-speed cameras, we use a range of 3D animation and VFX to create hybrids of cinema, video and digital art to embody new perspectives on these stories and to encourage forward-looking visions of the world that reinforce values of empathy, democracy and community.
From large-scale mapped projections that transform buildings and public space into temporary monuments, to diminutive mirrored terrariums that appear as infinite forests and a city-block-long garden as sculptural movie-sets and community gathering space, we propose new ways of experiencing and understanding our world with every project. Each is approached as an opportunity to learn, share and create new stories that we and our audience can carry into the future.
The Philadelphia-based artists have been collaborators since 2008. They are recipients of several honored awards including a 2015 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Pew Fellowships in the Arts and Fellowships from CFEVA and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Their work has been widely exhibited both domestically and abroad at venues including, Fondazione MAXXI (Rome), New Media Gallery (Vancouver), The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), UCLA Hammer Museum, PS1/MoMA, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Arizona State University Art Museum. They have been artists-in-residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Banff Centre, Marble House Project and the Millay Colony for Arts. Matthew Suib is co-founder of Greenhouse Media and Nadia Hironaka serves as a professor and department chair of film and video at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Hironaka & Suib are represented by Locks Gallery. The couple, along with their daughter and one cat reside in South Philly.
From 2007-2010, as an extension of their artistic practice, Hironaka and Suib founded Screening (www.screeningvideo.org). Philadelphia’s first gallery dedicated to the presentation of innovative and challenging works on video and film, Screening was a project devoted to expanding access to these media and exploring the influence of moving image culture on our understanding and experience of the world. Screening’s program has included solo exhibitions of work by internationally renowned artists including Johan Grimonprez, Takeshi Murata, Adam Putnam, Mark Lewis, Kelly Richardson, Mungo Thomson, Lars Laumann and others.
NADIA HIRONAKA
1999 M.F.A, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL
1997 B.F.A., The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA
MATTHEW SUIB
1995 B.F.A., The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA
Awards and Residencies
2022
Camp Colton Artist Residency, Colton, OR
2021
Interlude Residency, Hudson Valley, NY
2020
Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund, Baltimore, MD
2019
Velocity Fund, Temple Contemporary
2017
Marble House Residency, VT
2015
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
The Center for Emerging Visual Artists, Fellowship
2014
Millay Colony for the Arts, Austerlitz, NY
2013
Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA
2012
The Banff Centre, Leighton Colony Artist Residency, Canada
2011
Pew Fellowship in the Arts (Suib)
2008
Atlantic Center for the Arts (Hironaka)
2007
Atlantic Center for the Arts (Suib)
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Fellowship (Hironaka)
2006
Pew Fellowship in the Arts (Hironaka)
2004
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Fellowship (Suib)
Selected Exhibitions
2022
The Gravity of Beauty, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA
Aspen Ideas, Climate, Miami
2021
Field Companion, Locusts Projects, Miami
Field Companion, Rowan University Art Gallery, Glassboro, NJ
Architecture as Measure, 17th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Pavilion of Turkey, Venice, Italy
Pink Carnations, BlackStar Film Festival, Philadelphia
The Continuous Moment, Part 1, SPACE, Portland, ME
2020
A House In The Garden, Shofuso and Modernism, Philadelphia
2019
Moon Viewing Platform, Site/ Sound Rail Park Philadelphia, Mural Arts & American Composers
Forum, Philadelphia
Routine Maintenance, XII International Architecture Biennial of São Paulo, Brazil
The Continuous Moment, Greetings From Gratz by Superstudio, HAD, Gratz, Austria
Vanitas: MMXVIII, Seattle Art Fair, Seattle
Pink Carnations, The Maryland Film Festival, Baltimore
2018
Vanitas: MMXVIII, Waiting Here For You, National Hotel/Art Basel, Miami
Portraits, Center For Emerging Visual Artists, Philadelphia
2017
Superstudio 50 Years of Superarchitettura, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China
Dark Light, Cleve Carney Art Gallery, Chicago, IL
Dark Light, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia
Get It On the Record, University of Central Florida
2016
Superstudio 50 Years of Superarchitettura, MAXXI, Rome, Italy
Germinal, New Media Gallery, New Westminster, Canada
Artship OLYMPIA, USS Olympia, Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia
Maryland Film Festival, Baltimore
2015
Staging Los Angeles, Roski Gallery, USC, Los Angeles
Intersection, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore
Innovative Technologies, CRUX SPACE, Philadelphia
2014
Mirrors, Marks and Loops, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia
Philadelphia Industry, Mural Arts, Broad and Pine Streets, Philadelphia
2013
Game Lab, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Street Art Cinema, Freewaves at Long Beach
2012
1967, Young Projects at The Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles
Natural Discourse, The University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley
Right Here, Out There (Nowhere), Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, Wilmington
Attitude Cinema, Pesaro Film Festival, Pesaro, Italy & Zoe Gallery, Rome, Italy
1967, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia
2011
The Big Idea, Little Berlin, Philadelphia
One is the Loneliest Number, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
1967, International House Philadelphia
2010
Soft and Hard, Young Projects at The Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles
A Light at the End of the Tunnel, Scope Basel Cinema
Whiteout, Locks Gallery, Philadelphia
Post-Revolutionary Selections from the Powel House Moving Image Archive, 1888-2089, Landmarks
Contemporary Projects, Powel House Museum, Philadelphia
Right Here, Out There (Nowhere), Neon Campobase, Bologna, Italy
Right Here, Out There (Nowhere), Kunsthalle Galapagos, Brooklyn
Cinema Loop, curated by Paul Young, ARCO, Madrid
2009
Optica Festival, Buenos Aires/ Cordoba/ Paris
Black Hole, Kim Light Lightbox, Los Angeles
Implosion or Fusion, Shang Elements Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing
Mnemosyne, curated by Camilla Boemio, Centro Arti Visive, Pesaro, Italy
X Media Forum of the 31st Moscow International Film Festival, Moscow
Chimera, Envoy Enterprises, NYC
Chimera, Arcade Experimental Projects, Cyprus, Greece
2008
Salad Days (curated by Christopher Lew, PS1), Artists Space, NYC
Black Hole, Vox Populi, Philadelphia
The Soft Epic, or: Savages of the Pacific West, The Icebox Project Space, Philadelphia
The Soft Epic, or: Savages of the Pacific West, Telic Arts Exchange, Los Angeles
Cut!, Monkeytown, NYC
Recontres Internationale, Paris/ Berlin
Prequel, Philagrafika’s 2008 Artist Portfolio, featured artists
Selected Exhibitions (Hironaka)
2008
The Late Show, Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ
2007
Death Bizarre, Center for Photography at Woodstock, NY
2006
Scared to Death, Vox Populi, Philadelphia, PA
The Late Show, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
PULSAR, Caracas Contemporary Museum of Art, Venezuela
Selected Exhibitions (Suib)
2008
Purified By Fire, commission for Nuit Blanche, Toronto
2007
The Second Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Locally Localized Gravity, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia
MultiPlex: Infinitu et Contini, Smackmellon, NY
Bibliography
2022
Soutenir, Architecture Office SCAU and Cynthia Fleury, Pavillon de l’Arsenal, center for urbanism and architecture
2018
Unsung: Nadia Botello, Nadia Hironaka & Matthew Suib, 2018, Mural Arts, ISBN: 978-0-9903870-5-3
2017
Dark Light, Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, Cleve Carney Art Gallery
2014
Katherine Rochester, “Critics Pick”, Artforum, July
Edith Newhall, Suib and Hironaka’s dizzying video half-dozen, The Inquirer, July 14th
Sarah Burford, Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib: Mirrors, Marks & Loops, Title Magazine, July
2013
Nadia Hironaka & Matthew Suib, Good Game Magazine, issue 01
2012
Ranessa Allen, An Interview with Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, Fixe Mag, September, 2012
Jennifer Hirsh, Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib with C. Spencer Yeh, Art in America, May, 2012
Jacob Feige, 1967: Nadia Hironaka and Matthew Suib, Title Magazine, February, 2012
Edith Newhall, Locks is transformed into a movie theater of sorts, The Inquirer, February 12th, 2012
Katherine Rochester, “1967” at Locks Gallery Experiments With Political Fact and Fiction, Philadelphia Weekly, Jan.25th, 2012
2011
Roberta Fallon, Two for “One” at the Institute of Contemporary Art, The Philadelphia Weekly, May 18th, 2011
2010
Sue Spaid, Nadia Hironaka / Matthew Suib, Art US, #29, September 2010
Edith Newhall, Summer Whiteout, The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 11th, 2010
Roberta Fallon, Whiteout, The Philadelphia Weekly, July 13th, 2010
Edith Newhall, Dreamhouse, The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 25th, 2010
Jonathan Wallis, PERSPECTIVE: “Post-Revolutionary Selections” at the Powel House Museum,
City Paper, April 28th, 2010
2009
Leah Ollman, Getting Sucked into ‘Black Hole’, Los Angeles Times, August 14th, 2009
2008
Sarah Kessler, “Critics Pick”, Artforum.com, August 2008