Kei Ito

Kei Ito is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores memory, history, and intergenerational inheritance through cameraless photography, performance, and installation. Born in Japan and based in the United States, Ito draws from his experience as a third-generation hibakusha—his grandfather survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima—to examine how invisible forces such as radiation, trauma, and time persist across bodies and landscapes.

Working without a camera, Ito creates images through direct contact processes using light, heat, and chemical reactions. His works often take the form of large-scale installations that incorporate historical artifacts, archival research, and performative gestures, transforming photographic materials into ephemeral environments that function as contemporary monuments.

Ito’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in solo exhibitions at the Georgia Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), Gregory Allicar Museum, and many more. Notable group exhibitions include showing at Phillips Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art, apexart, Der Grief, Ethan Cohen KuBe, Kreeger Museum, SF Camerawork, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Eskenazi Museum of Art.

Ito earned his MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art’s photography program in which later he was appointed as an interim director in 2026. His practice has been featured in publications including The Washington Post Magazine, Hyperallergic, BBC Culture & Art, NHK, It’s Nice That, and ESSE Magazine. His work is held in collections such as the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Georgia Museum of Art, Norton Museum of Art, Eskenazi Museum of Art, and Royal Ontario Museum.