About

Ruka Nayu / 나유루카 / 路卡奈柔

^{(Formerly known as 김나유/ Nayu Kim/ Nuka Nayu/ knuka knayu)}

My practice unfolds as a dialogue between research processes and the creation of fictional canon, a compendium conceived as an embodied archaeology of the imaginary. Working across performance, choreography, costume, textile sculpture, drawing, writing, digital world-building, and moving image, I explore myth, cultural memory, and speculative narrative through phantom sense: the perception of what is absent yet deeply felt.

Through interdisciplinary methods, I treat fiction as both epistemological and ontological. Informed by speculative realism, hauntology, Japanese philosophy, Korean shamanism, East Asian embodiment practices, and animistic technologies, I investigate how the body becomes an archive of layered temporalities and unseen transmissions.

Fiction operates in my work as embodied contingency, shifting between presence and disappearance and resisting fixed narratives in favour of plural, atemporal realities. Bodily tensegrity plays a critical role in shaping tension and balance, structuring presence within spectral and speculative space.

Through acts of encoding and decoding, I explore how fictioning and myth act as invocations, becoming portals to unrealised histories and speculative futures. Textile sculptures emerge as suspended bodies and haunted vessels. Drawings function as reversed archaeological tools. Digital surfaces record spectral touch. My practice reimagines dominant narratives through speculative archaeology and unfolds alternative realities through the singular-plural resonance of a self-created canon.

CV

Education
Royal College of Art/ MA Sculpture
Goldsmiths, University of London / BA Fine Art (Hons) (Extension Degree)

Awards/Residencies
2023 Mark Tanner Sculpture Award; Longlisted, Standpoint Gallery
2022 Prix Ars Electronica; Honorary mention
2021 Chang/ce Commission Open Call; Winner, BAGRI Foundation
2021 Studio Voltaire/LOEWE Studio awards; Longlisted, Studio Voltaire
2021 January Resident: 1 month Residency, QUEERCIRCLE
2021 SPACE Artist Awards 2021; Shortlisted, SPACE studios
2021 British Fashion Council: NEW WAVE: 1st Round Nominee
2020 SLG Postgraduate Residency 2020-2021; Shortlisted, South London Gallery
2020 Sanitasia Sanitation Gala Competition; Winner, Stockholm Fringe Festival
2020 SPUR: Virtual 6 months Residency; CORE member, Chaos Magic Space
2020 Harlow Art Trust: Sculpture Town Artist in Residence; Shortlisted
2016 Residency: RAID, LARA, Unit 28, Penarth Centre, London

Selected Exhibitions and Screenings
2025 ‘Transphobia is Feminism of Fools’, 70-72 Kingland Road, London
2023 ‘Fluid Cosmologies’, Forma Arts and Media , London
2023 ‘It was a Roadside Picnic/Beyond Black Orientalism’ DAAD futurism, Format Festival
2022 ‘Destination: Other Worlds’, HOME, Manchester
2022 ‘Queer East Film Festival’, Artists’ Moving Images: Destination: Other Worlds + Q&A, CCA, Glasgow
2022 ‘Game Jame Showcase - Nature Godded Worlds’, QUAD, Derby
2022 ‘TIME TRAVEL ACROSS MANY-WORLDS’, BALTIC, Newcastle
2022 ‘Mudlark’, Generation & Display, London
2022 ‘2022 Queer East Film Festival’, Barbican Centre, London
2022 ‘GAME JAM’ session led by Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, QUAD, Derby
2022 ‘super☆sonic’, Baesianz, London Short Film Festival, Rich Mix, London
2022 ‘It was a Roadside Picnic/Beyond Black Orientalism’ DAAD futurism, New Art City
2021 ‘Peach Fuzz’, Haze Projects, The Factory Project, London
2021 ‘Chang/ce’ commission, BAGRI Foundation
2021 ‘SPUR irl’, D-unit, Bristol
2021 ‘NEW ART WORLD’, Guts Gallery, London
2021 ‘SPACE LAPSE: RCA SCULPTURE 2020’, The Royal Society of Sculptors, London
2021 'Old Friends, New Friends', Collective Ending, London
2021 ‘SPUR CORE MEMBER; Public presentation, SPUR WORD
2021 ‘Ephemeral vs Ethereal’, The University for the Creative Arts, Farnham
2020 ‘AOS’, Arebyte Gallery, London
2020 ‘Mushrooms in the dark’, 33 E Dulwich Grove, London
2020 ‘Sanitasia Gala’, Orionteatern, Stockholm Fringe Festival, Stockholm
2020 ‘ARC Magazine: Dirty Issue’ Montez Radio, New York
2020 ‘a fish you have already caught’, created by Ed Compson, Battersea park, London
2019 ‘Gut Magazine issue 5 launch night’, LN-CC, London
2019 'The Oscar Wilde Temple Artists’ Group Performance Night', Studio Voltaire, London
2019 'Everything you need to know about Sculpture', Orozco Garden, South London Gallery, London
2019 'Sculpture Zoo Keepers', Hackney Gallery, Royal College of Art, London
2016 ‘RAID 2: Nayu Kim’, LARA, Unit 28, Penarth Centre, London
2015 ‘MONO’, Courtyard Theatre, London
2014 'The Two Sevens Clash', DIG, London
2014 'Women's Day', DIG, London
2014 'To Fly To Serve', HFBK Hamburg, Hamburg
2013 ‘Reflection of Society on Contemporary art’ at Telecom ParisTech, Engineering School in Paris, Paris
2013 'S.I.R', Red Gallery, London

Talks & Publications
Panel Talk QUEERCIRCLE & the VoV on 29th June 2021
https://www.thevov.art/on-demand/thevov-unites-exploring-safe-space
1 -Month-Residency in January 2021 at QUEERCIRCLE
http://www.queercircle.org/artist/nuka-nayu/
http://www.queercircle.org/inspiration-nuka-nayu/
http://www.queercircle.org/in-conversation-with-nuka-nayu/
AOS arebyte Gallery on 20th Sept - 4th Oct https://aos.arebyte.com/contents/nuka-nayu-sleepawake-chaoskampf/
Creatives4SystemicChange (online), 28th June 2020 - 4th July https://www.creatives4systemicchange.com/contact
Featured in the Article on Linkedin by Howard Sullivan on 4th August 2020
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/double-reality-howard-sullivan
ARC magazine (online), ‘Careless limbs’ featured in ‘ARC Magazine: Dirty Issue, featured in week 9 31st July 2020 https://arcmagazine.org/pieces/internal/careless-limbs/
Mentioned in the article on Made in bed by Vienna Kim, 16th July 2020, https://www.madeinbed.co.uk/reviews/i-was-invited-to-the-royal-college-of-art-online-degree-show-private-viewing-with-mixed-emotions