ON VIEW
April 22 – 29
+ May 12 – 20

EXHIBITION OPENINGS
Friday, April 21, 5 – 7 pm
+ Thursday, May 11, 5 – 7 pm

@riohtakita

Richard Takita


Richard Takita is a United States and Japan based garment creator who focuses on topics such as displacement, youth, and social issues. His garments are made based on his inspirations by the environment and culture that he grew up with in his hometown Fukushima, Japan during natural disasters, and the way that society depicts people who fight against large social issues and intense overwork environments. He has been learning fashion through self teaching and internships. He will continue on creating garments and working on his brand going forward.

Self Portrait: This work consists of stories and histories of those who kept trying to belong somewhere. It is about ones who kept trying to deny. Their uniforms, their bodies, things that they acquired so that they could fight silently. They are someone that I knew. They have always been standing on a low tide. It was quiet. Preparing for things that are coming towards us. I have started to think that we might have been waiting for something that never arrives. Wondering why I wanted to stay here. Where you live. Wondering if you would look back if I became one with the ocean. I tried to sew their memories again, only so that I could put them back together and wear them. It was cold, but I felt the warmth. That’s when I closed my eyes.

Something that has been my absence, the protection named garments. Yet I found out that I might have been trying to become something else. Or perhaps they were helping me to bring myself to my home. This is a physical visualization of space when I am the dark blue, and this illusion has been mine. I hope you can see it.


The MFA Thesis Exhibitions for the Class of 2023 are interdisciplinary shows that incorporate a range of making practices unified by the overwhelming concerns these students have for their environment, their communities, their families, and their own well-being. With an emphasis on the personal, and at times the anecdotal, these 21 artists make a variety of contributions in the form of ceramics, garments, furniture, installations, paintings, photographs, poems, prints, sculptures, and videos. The nature of their work and research demonstrates the caliber and cultural relevance of our program.











Institute of Contemporary Art
at Maine College of Art & Design
522 Congress St.Portland, ME 04101

Gallery Hours:
Wed–Sun, 11:00am–5:00pm,
Thursday, 11:00am–7:00pm