Art exhibition
Ayaka Terajima – Packed Space under the Moon
RizzutoGallery
Ackerstraße 34, 40233 Düsseldorf
RizzutoGallery is delighted to present ‘Packed Space under the Moon’, the first solo exhibition by the Japanese artist Ayaka Terajima in Düsseldorf.
Her work, which focuses primarily on unglazed ceramic sculptures, combines an archaic Japanese imagination with contemporary consumer culture and explores the relationship between tradition, material and transformation.
The exhibition will take place in the gallery building at Ackerstraße 34. It opens on Saturday, 14 November 2026, from 6.00 pm and runs until 9 January 2027. The exhibition can be visited every Friday from 4.00 pm to 6.00 pm and every Saturday from 11.00 am to 1.00 pm, or by appointment on +49 157 73718369.
Ayaka Terajima was born in 1987 in Aichi, a region in central Japan renowned for its long-standing tradition of ceramics. She completed her training in Tokyo and Munich, where she currently lives and works.
In her works, discarded plastic objects and packaging are transformed into moulds and matrices for the creation of unglazed ceramic sculptures that resemble the remains of ancient civilisations, mysterious artefacts, anthropomorphic beings from a future world, or idols of unknown cultures. The use of recycled clay and her decision to leave the porous surfaces unsealed – without the glossy glaze – are among the most striking features of her sculptural practice. These choices lend her works a tactile, eerie and timeless appearance.
Somewhere between archaeology and science fiction, suspended between the millennia-old tradition of clay working and the contemporary culture of mass production, Ayaka Terajima liberates disposable forms from their transient fate and transforms them into enduring, permanent and almost sacred manifestations.
The exhibition title, ‘Packed Space under the Moon’, encapsulates this encounter between seemingly distant eras and realms of imagination. The forms of industrial packaging intertwine with the archaic symbolism of the moon, thereby drawing on the culture of Japan’s prehistoric Jōmon period and its visual language of natural cycles, transformation and rebirth. Rope patterns and forms inspired by Doki figurines also evoke the image of the snake – part of a symbolic universe in which matter seems to preserve the mystery of life and its constant renewal.
Through this juxtaposition of past and present, of archaeology and mass-produced goods, of what we regard as valuable and what we are accustomed to discarding, Ayaka Terajima reflects on the value we attribute to objects, on the power of transformation, and on the possibility of material and spiritual renewal.
The exhibition features unglazed, fired ceramic sculptures in various sizes, as well as works on paper drawn from the artist’s most recent research. Created using oil pastels and fragments from supermarket leaflets and advertising materials, these works continue to explore commercial communication and consumer culture.
With a keen sense of material and process, Ayaka Terajima reveals art’s ability to reverse the fate of forms and, hovering between memory and imagination, evokes a beauty and a mystery capable of enduring the test of time.
Ayaka Terajima’s works are held in the permanent collections of the Pinakothek der Moderne – Die Neue Sammlung in Munich (featuring ‘Doki on the Three Days’ (2023)) and the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts in Leipzig (featuring ‘Little Nailed Arm Doki’ (2024)).
Among the awards and honours she has received is one of the honorary prizes of the prestigious Danner Prize in Germany in 2026. In 2025, she received the Bavarian Studio Prize and was nominated for the SIMACEK Prize in Austria. In 2024, she received the Bavarian Art Promotion Prize for Fine Art, an award from the Free State of Bavaria for the promotion of the fine arts, as well as the Bavarian State Prize.
In 2022, she won second prize in the ceramics category at the Danner Foundation’s student competition at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In the same year, she received the Frechen Ceramics Prize, sponsored by RheinEnergie, as well as the BKV Prize, including an honourable mention, awarded by the Bavarian Association of Arts and Crafts. Also in 2022, she took part in the ‘Young Art and New Paths’ scholarship programme, which is funded by the Free State of Bavaria.
In 2020, she was a finalist in the ‘Talente’ competition. In 2018, she received an overseas scholarship from the Pola Art Foundation and, in 2017, an arts and culture scholarship from the Nomura Foundation in Japan.
The exhibition will take place in the gallery building at Ackerstraße 34. It opens on Saturday, 14 November 2026, from 6.00 pm and runs until 9 January 2027. The exhibition can be visited every Friday from 4.00 pm to 6.00 pm and every Saturday from 11.00 am to 1.00 pm, or by appointment on +49 157 73718369.
Ayaka Terajima was born in 1987 in Aichi, a region in central Japan renowned for its long-standing tradition of ceramics. She completed her training in Tokyo and Munich, where she currently lives and works.
In her works, discarded plastic objects and packaging are transformed into moulds and matrices for the creation of unglazed ceramic sculptures that resemble the remains of ancient civilisations, mysterious artefacts, anthropomorphic beings from a future world, or idols of unknown cultures. The use of recycled clay and her decision to leave the porous surfaces unsealed – without the glossy glaze – are among the most striking features of her sculptural practice. These choices lend her works a tactile, eerie and timeless appearance.
Somewhere between archaeology and science fiction, suspended between the millennia-old tradition of clay working and the contemporary culture of mass production, Ayaka Terajima liberates disposable forms from their transient fate and transforms them into enduring, permanent and almost sacred manifestations.
The exhibition title, ‘Packed Space under the Moon’, encapsulates this encounter between seemingly distant eras and realms of imagination. The forms of industrial packaging intertwine with the archaic symbolism of the moon, thereby drawing on the culture of Japan’s prehistoric Jōmon period and its visual language of natural cycles, transformation and rebirth. Rope patterns and forms inspired by Doki figurines also evoke the image of the snake – part of a symbolic universe in which matter seems to preserve the mystery of life and its constant renewal.
Through this juxtaposition of past and present, of archaeology and mass-produced goods, of what we regard as valuable and what we are accustomed to discarding, Ayaka Terajima reflects on the value we attribute to objects, on the power of transformation, and on the possibility of material and spiritual renewal.
The exhibition features unglazed, fired ceramic sculptures in various sizes, as well as works on paper drawn from the artist’s most recent research. Created using oil pastels and fragments from supermarket leaflets and advertising materials, these works continue to explore commercial communication and consumer culture.
With a keen sense of material and process, Ayaka Terajima reveals art’s ability to reverse the fate of forms and, hovering between memory and imagination, evokes a beauty and a mystery capable of enduring the test of time.
Ayaka Terajima’s works are held in the permanent collections of the Pinakothek der Moderne – Die Neue Sammlung in Munich (featuring ‘Doki on the Three Days’ (2023)) and the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts in Leipzig (featuring ‘Little Nailed Arm Doki’ (2024)).
Among the awards and honours she has received is one of the honorary prizes of the prestigious Danner Prize in Germany in 2026. In 2025, she received the Bavarian Studio Prize and was nominated for the SIMACEK Prize in Austria. In 2024, she received the Bavarian Art Promotion Prize for Fine Art, an award from the Free State of Bavaria for the promotion of the fine arts, as well as the Bavarian State Prize.
In 2022, she won second prize in the ceramics category at the Danner Foundation’s student competition at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In the same year, she received the Frechen Ceramics Prize, sponsored by RheinEnergie, as well as the BKV Prize, including an honourable mention, awarded by the Bavarian Association of Arts and Crafts. Also in 2022, she took part in the ‘Young Art and New Paths’ scholarship programme, which is funded by the Free State of Bavaria.
In 2020, she was a finalist in the ‘Talente’ competition. In 2018, she received an overseas scholarship from the Pola Art Foundation and, in 2017, an arts and culture scholarship from the Nomura Foundation in Japan.
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