About

Ruka Nayu / 나유루카 / 路卡奈柔

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

︎ Index

My practice unfolds as a dialogue between research processes and the creation of fictional canon—a compendium as an embodied archaeology of the imaginary. Through speculative and interdisciplinary methodologies, I explore the inscription of cultural memory, treating fiction as both an epistemological tool and an ontological medium. Phantom sense—the perception of what is absent yet deeply felt—shapes my inquiry into myth, ritual, and embodiment, working at the intersection of speculative realism, hauntology, Japanese philosophy, East Asian embodiment practices, and animistic technologies.

Anthropological and interpersonal research—including encounters with shamans, paranormal investigators, and cult members—forms the foundation of my work. I trace how bodies become carriers of unseen transmissions, moving through layered temporalities beyond linear historicism. Fiction functions as an embodied contingency, shifting between presence and disappearance, resisting fixed narratives in favour of plural realities. My approach is grounded in embodied knowledge—the body as an archive, a site where memory, movement, and myth inscribe themselves through practice. Bodily tensegrity plays a critical role in this process, shaping my exploration of tension, balance, and the structuring of presence within spectral and speculative spaces.

Through acts of encoding and decoding, I examine how myth and embodied fictioning serve as invocations—portals to unrealised histories and possible futures. My work spans performance, choreography, improvisation, prose, poetry, diagrams, science fiction, drawing, sound, costume, digital environments, and moving images. Layered, fragmented, shifting, and autopoietic, these elements intertwine—textile sculptures as suspended bodies and encoded histories, costumes as haunted vessels and fictional skin, sound echoing the past and recording contingencies, drawings as reversed archaeological tools uncovering buried memories, writing as the psyche of the canon, and movements as devices tracing speculative narratives. Existing within the singular-plurality of the self-created canon, they remain in continuous dialogue, unfolding and recomposing as a compendium. Fiction seeps into material; textile and digital surfaces become encoded with phantom presences, creating immersive mythologies that are both cinematic and spectral.

Through speculative archaeology, I examine how fictional canon is constructed, dismantled, and reconfigured as a means of decolonising dominant narratives. Resonance is central to this process—fiction, embodiment, and myth unfold in unpredictable constellations, shaped by traces, gaps, and the interplay of absence and immanence. By working through encoded traces, ephemeral transmissions, and spectral imprints, I seek to materialise the intangible—to make felt what is neither fully present nor absent.

My practice is a site where phantom sense, hauntological myth-making, and speculative contingency converge, uncovering resonances between the archaic and the yet-to-come.

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 January Resident: 1 month Residency, QUEERCIRCLE
2021 Studio Voltaire/LOEWE Studio awards; Longlisted, Studio Voltaire
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
2020 Back on Track Fund, Royal College of Art
2020 Edinburgh College of Art Exchange, a programme ran by Royal College of Art
2016 Residency: RAID, LARA, Unit 28, Penarth Centre, London
2014 HFBK Hamburg Exchange, Goldsmiths College, University of London
2013 Master Class: Martha Rosler, New York; a programme ran by Goldsmiths College, University of London

Selected Shows
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, Quard, 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 WORLD
2021 ‘Part of the Community’, Student Union website, Royal College of Art
2021 ‘Ephemeral vs Ethereal’, The University for the Creative Arts, Farnham
2020 ‘RCA Fundraiser Livestream for Beirut’, Royal College of Art
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 ‘ARC Magazine: Dirty Issue; launch night’, Royal College of Art, London
2020 ‘a fish you have already caught’, created by Ed Compson, Battersea park, London
2020 ‘RCA2020’, Royal College of Art, 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, Stevens Building, Royal College of Art, London
2019 'Working-in-Progress Show', 3rd Floor, Darwin Building, Royal College of Art
2016 ‘RAID 2: Nayu Kim’, LARA, Unit 28, Penarth Centre, London
2015 ‘MONO’, Courtyard Theatre, London
2014 'Goldsmiths BA Fine Art Degree Show', Goldsmiths, University of London, 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
2011 'T R A N S P L A N T E D', Goldsmiths, University of London, 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