My practice weaves together photography, writing, installation, and collective devices to explore how art can respond to the fragility of communities and traces of disaster. I create hybrid forms that drift between the digital and the material, the visible and the spectral, seeking to generate spaces for shared rituals and new modes of living together.
By staging images, scents, objects, and ephemeral gestures, I question the status of the artwork in an era of technological reproducibility and ecological collapse. Through collaborative processes and poetic instructions, my work invites fragile alliances and micro-communities to emerge within everyday spaces.
Thomas Pepito Vauthier is a French artist, researcher and curator based in Kyoto. After studying architecture, he completed a degree in contemporary art at ENSAD Paris. His encounter with Japanese culture shifted his focus from the artwork itself to the creation of spaces where people gather and new relationships emerge.Through the renovation of a vacant izakaya, the construction of a tea hut in a fishing village, and the curation of alternative art spaces, he investigates how artistic practice can generate new modes of living together and foster micro-communities.He is currently pursuing a practice-based PhD between France and Japan.
Born in 1993 in Paris, France. Currently based in Kyoto.
2018: Graduated with a Master’s degree in Photography and Image from École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD), Paris, France
2022–2023: Research student in the Global Arts program at Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo Geidai)
2024: Received a PhD in Artistic Practice from Aix-Marseille University, France
2023–2026: Currently enrolled in the Doctoral Program in Sculpture at Kyoto City University of Arts
[Selected Solo Exhibitions]
2024 — Ittekimasu / Tadaima, École nationale supérieure de la photographie, Arles, France
2024 — Monomi #3, Nuit Blanche Kyoto 2024, Bridge Studio, Kyoto
2023 — Monomi #1, Villa Kujoyama, Kyoto
2023 — Living Yokocho, Sumida Mukōjima EXPO, Tokyo
2023 — Kyojima, Capital Island, Present Island, ONA Project Room, Tokyo
2023 — Metapets, Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art
[Selected Group Exhibitions]
2025 — Ukicha, Mikke Gallery, Tokyo
2025 — Kyojima Hanafuda, BankART Station, Tokyo
2024 — The Bachelors, 100 Years Later, Watowa Gallery, Tokyo
2024 — Scent of Community, Osaka Kansai International Art Festival, Osaka
2019 — Dés-œuvres de jeunesse, Ricard Art Foundation, Paris
[Selected Awards]
2024 — Nuit Blanche Select, Nuit Blanche Festival, Kyoto
2023 — Watowa Art Award, Watowa Gallery, Tokyo
2018 — Olympus Art Award, Rencontres d’Arles Photography Festival, Arles
