“I look back at the Harumi who made Mar de Primavera (Spring Sea) with nostalgia. I think I’m a different person now.” Harumi López Higa continues to constantly grow, using her experiences as motivation and inspiration.
Harumi is a Peruvian Yonsei descended from Okinawan migrants. She’s always seeking out stories, which has led her to focus on communication and art. She now lives in Kyoto, where she is studying for a master’s degree in art at the Kyoto University of the Arts. It’s an experience she never imagined for herself.
Harumi’s approach to art began with Spring Sea, a short documentary that was her thesis project in audiovisual communication at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. The film narrates her story as a child and adolescent with a genu flexum (permanent knee flexion) diagnosis. Although initially she didn’t consider her project to be artistic, Haroldo Higa, a visual artist, convinced her to submit it to the third Young Nikkei Artists Salon, where she was able to develop her potential.
Now, Harumi views her first work as a unique experience in which she reflected on her experiences in childhood and adolescence: performances in preschool and primary school, operations, diagnoses, her graduation party, and how these situations have enabled her to constantly push forward. “I was able to represent [my memories] in images so that people could experience, or experience again, these moments with me. It was the first time I confronted my memories,” she explains.
She also reflects on the independence she has achieved through living in Japan, recalling with nostalgia the Harumi shown in Spring Sea as a girl who never imagined what awaited her later in life.
For the Art Salon, Harumi created Yonsei, an audiovisual project that she’s had the opportunity to present internationally, at the Cecehachero Film Fest in Mexico, Shimanchu Nu Mōashibi in Brazil, and the Festival of Peruvian Cinema in Madrid, among other events. In 2023, Yonsei premiered in Japan in a showing for young people at the Nippon Foundation Nikkei Scholars Association. Recently, in November 2024, the short film was subtitled in Japanese for a showing at the Kobe City University of Foreign Studies to commemorate 125 years of Japanese immigration to Peru.
This experience of exploring the Nikkei community led to Harumi’s interest in the history of Peruvians who went to work in Japan in the 1980s, driven by Peru’s economic crisis. This topic led her to apply to a master’s program in Japan supported by Nikkei Scholarship, focusing her research on all she had learned.
Living in Japan provided even more gratifying opportunities: the chance to live with her family there, who she had not seen in many years. Spending holidays with them and participating in events in the Peruvian community in Japan has helped her feel at home, satisfying the nostalgia she sometimes feels for Peru. “Life here in Japan can be somewhat solitary, and we bring a warmth to it,” she says.
The first time Harumi participated in an art show at her university in Japan, she confirmed the teachings she had absorbed as a student in Peru. The idea that students in Japan are responsible for maintaining cleanliness and order at their schools became reality when she learned that students are involved in all functions of putting on the shows, from painting walls and moving furniture to serving as receptionists. Her project was a three-minute installation that uses material she had filmed during her stay in Japan combined with her archive of recordings from Peru. Through her work she conveys the experiences of the Peruvian diaspora, as well as her own.
“One of the things I’ve learned recently is to not be afraid to weave my personal history with the history of the community I’m researching, because ultimately I’m also part of that diaspora.” Harumi also explains that it took her a long time to realize that “beyond being an international student, I’m simply another migrant.”
Harumi values interacting with the Nikkei community, as she always learns from those situations. The Young Nikkei Artists Salon was “a transformative experience” through which she was exposed to artists approaching the same topic from different angles. That was also where she met Adriana and Tomiko, artists with whom she founded the Bugueisha Collective, which focuses on Nikkei women.
With coordination by Doris Moromisato and the curator Jaidith Soto, they created a safe space where women could speak freely. Harumi is still connected with the Artists Salon and closely follows the new work that has been featured in the eight versions of the event organized so far. She was the first audiovisual artist to participate in the event. Since then, other video artists have participated, as well as other talented artists who experiment with and mix media including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and more.
Harumi believes that each year the featured artists build on what has come before, and she’s proud to have been part of that history. She has become a reference for other artists in the Salon, which enables her to feel connected to the other participants despite the distance.
Through her studies in Japan, Harumi has met Nikkei from other countries with whom she can share her experiences as a member of the diaspora and find common ground despite different contexts. Being in Japan, she thinks about the migration experiences of her family. She recognizes the privilege afforded by today’s technology, such as connecting with family in Peru by internet or using a mobile phone to translate words she doesn’t know. Despite all that, she still feels that adapting to a new place has been difficult.
Her great-grandparents were from Okinawa, but left Japan from the port in Kobe. That’s why, when Yonsei was shown with Japanese subtitles in that prefecture, she thought about how her great-grandmother, who she never met, would have been able to understand the film.
This year, based on her master’s research, Harumi has traveled to different cities for encounters with the Peruvian diaspora in Japan. Likewise, she is now part of a research group at her alma mater, which has brought her back to Peru for a while. Thanks to this project, she has had the opportunity to speak with Nikkei who have migrated to Japan and returned to Peru, broadening her knowledge.
Harumi López Higa is a unique artist. Her experiences, community, interests, and connections define her projects and make them stand out.
When she started out in the Young Nikkei Artists Salon, the curator Juan Peralta told her that art is a way of communicating. Harumi has taken art’s communicative aspect and used it to connect with people’s emotions. “I’ve found that the courage to be vulnerable is really what produces the emotional connection with people.” In that way, although her art is personal, others can identify with it and link it to their own experiences. “That’s something that motivates me to continue telling stories,” she explains.
Having grown alongside her art, where she has been able to express her different experiences, Harumi has become an artist who connects with others through emotion. Her interest in Nikkei history has also brought in many people from the community who identify with and value her work, as manifested by the support she has received from Nikkei institutions. Harumi’s ability to speak to both personal and collective experience in the Nikkei community will continue to help her stand out internationally.
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Harumi López Higa will be a panelist at our upcoming International Nikkei Family Stories Panel Discussion on February 8, 2025 as part of Discover Nikkei Fest. Discover Nikkei Fest kicks off Discover Nikkei’s twentieth anniversary with a full day of activities including a Community Fair, Family Stories Workshops, Panel Discussion (in-person and virtual), and Reception. Attend the panel discussion in-person at JANM or virtually from around the world! Register here.
© 2025 Hiro Ramos Nako
