Akiko Shinzato explores the boundaries between jewellery, fashion and art through wearable sculpture.

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Her practice begins with the body — its appearance, gestures, behaviours and the invisible forces that surround it. Through jewellery and sculptural objects, she alters, extends and reframes the body, creating moments of beauty that can feel unfamiliar, playful or unsettling.

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Shinzato’s work often transforms intangible ideas or overlooked aspects of everyday experience into physical form: confidence becomes a structure that changes the wearer’s posture; spoken words become sculptural speech balloons surrounding the body; sweat becomes crystal adornment; makeup and facial features become detachable layers of identity.

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Working across metal, crystal, leather and unconventional materials, she approaches each project differently, allowing concept, material and experimentation to determine the final form. Rather than treating jewellery solely as decoration, Shinzato uses the act of wearing as part of the work itself — exploring how an object can alter the way a body looks, moves, behaves or is perceived.

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Through these interventions, her work occupies an ambiguous space between adornment and sculpture, the familiar and the strange, asking where the body ends and the object begins.