Emiko will use the residency to develop works for an upcoming group exhibition “There was music playing from the house next door” to be presented at the Zig Zag Gallery in 2026. The exhibition is a speculative fiction collaboration with Gabby Loo and Kim Donnelly exploring themes of home, safety and community, Asian diaspora migrant identity on unceded land and queer resilience. Emiko will be investigating the use of materials and processes such as cyanotype printing, acetone transfer prints, plant dyes, and photography printed on textiles.

Emiko Watanabe is a photographer, radio broadcaster, zine-maker, and lawyer based in Boorloo/Perth whose creative practice focuses on ephemeral works and intercultural storytelling. As a photographer, she works with 35mm film to capture fleeting moments and observations of daily life and nature. Emiko is also a broadcaster at RTRFM 92.1 and has co-produced Cut Fruit Diaspora, a five-part series about food culture from an Asian diaspora lens, and produced Inside Outside, a four-part series about cultural identity in Australia. Emiko has also been a director of artist-run-initiative Paper Mountain, and a co-founder of Aunty Mabel’s Zine Distro.