Takeshi Moro
M.F.A., The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
B.A., Brown University
Research Areas
Takeshi Moro was born in Japan, raised in the U.K. and currently works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Moro studied photography at Rhode Island School of Design and holds a B.A. in Visual Arts from Brown University. He completed his M.F.A. graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Moro’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Serlachius Museot, Finland. His work resides in the permanent collection at Museum of Contemporary Photography, as well as in various private collections.
ARTS 50 Film and Darkroom Photography
ARTS 57 Digital Photography
ARTS 100 Studio Art Seminar
ARTS 150 Intermediate Film Photography
ARTS 157 Intermediate Digital Photography
ARTS 158 Advanced Digital Photography
ARTS 159 Digital Storytelling Through the Visual Arts
ARTS 196 Capstone Senior Exhibit
Practicing Non-Violent Protest
Published by Sming Sming Books
July 2023, English, 4.25 x 5.5 in,
28 pages, color, softcover
Edition of 200
Practicing Non-Violent Protest is a zine of impromptu performances by Takeshi Moro’s daughters between 2016-2020.
Benign Neglect
Published by Sming Sming Books
June 2023, English, 9 x 12 in,
72 pages, softcover, full color, spiral bound with metal rod, rope, and pin
Edition of 300
In Benign Neglect: Historic Japanese American Bonsai, artist and photographer Takeshi Moro documents sixty bonsai grown by seed by the Issei (first-generation Japanese Americans) post-WWII. These bonsai were left in the care of renowned aesthetic pruner Dennis Makishima, who described the collection as being one of "benign neglect" as the Issei became too busy rebuilding their lives after the war, and gave minimal attention to the bonsai. Over time, the bonsai started to form odd visual features, and their aesthetic characteristics are not typical of, or even desired by, traditional or contemporary Japanese bonsai practices.
Moraga Garden Center
Printed by Copa Press
September 2021, English, 8 x 8 in,
101 pages, full color, softcover
ISBN 1737990504
For 50 years, the Murakami family helped landscape countless homes across the East Bay Area. Moro’s book pays tribute to them by photographing some of the clients in their yards made beautiful by Moraga Garden Center.
Ichi-go ichi-e
Serlachius Museums Publications
Grafic design: Teija Lammi, Grafemi
2013, English and Finnish
67 pages
9 Aldus Oy, Lahti, Finland
ISBN 978-952-7017-00-5
Moro photographed in winter 2012–2013 the life of the asylum-seekers who moved to Mänttä from Ruovesi (Finland) along with asylum-seeker’s reception center. The central persons are Hussein, Qalander and Wali from Afghanistan. Moro took part in their daily life, wandered with them around in Mänttä and observed their routines at home. Moro depicts the arrival and the life of the reception center on the basis of ichi-go ichi-e -way of thinking that is related to Japanese tea ceremony. This philosophy emphasizes the importance of the individual meetings included in each tea ceremony.