Guy Keulemans and Kyoko Hashimoto met in 2000 and have since developed their careers together. They were resident artists at Rooftop Studios in Berlin (2010) and JamFactory in Adelaide (2015) and collaborated on the concept and design of the Berlin studio/gallery We Are All Made of Stuff. Since 2016, they have a renewed focus on their collaborative works with multiple acquisitions by the National Gallery of Victoria in 2017, 2018 and 2019. They also work together through Keulemans’ experimental design research and curation on repair, reuse and sustainable futures, such as Object Therapy with Hotel Hotel, funded by a Federal Visions of Australia award to tour around Australia.
Their work proposes ethical and aesthetic challenges to paradigms of material practice in art, craft, design and industry - especially for those materials that dominate 21st century existence: plastic, concrete and fossil fuels. They create objects that address existential threats posed by globalised resource extraction and advocate for new forms of sensory engagement with materials. Hashimoto and Keulemans have a love for historical and critical discourse and position their works as tools to open up discussion around objects that transition between exhibition, commercial and domestic spaces in relation to the senses and the body.
Separately and together they have featured on ABC and Al Jazeera television and radio, and have been invited speakers for events by the National Gallery of Victoria, City of Sydney, the Japan Foundation, Craft Victoria, and the Australian Design Centre. They have exhibited at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia), SODA (Turkey), Galerie Charactere (Switzerland), Talente (Germany), Pier-2 Art Centre (Taiwan), the Marres Centre (Netherlands), COCA Torun (Poland) and ARS Electronica (Austria).
Australian media includes the Sydney Morning Herald, Canberra Times, Garland Magazine, Artichoke, Belle, Vogue Living and Marmalade, and international media includes Domus (Italy), Artforum (US), Wood Planet (Korea), Cut Magazine (Germany) Der Tagesspiegel (Germany), La Republica (Italy), Axis (Japan), Kaleidoscope (Italy) and Items (Netherlands). They have five works in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.
