About
MIMAI is an independent platform for art, research, and cultural production. Rooted in histories shaped by generational and border-crossing movement, MIMAI investigates what lies in between—transcending fixed identities and single narratives. Founded by Silvia Y. Tam and Shingo Shimada, MIMAI develops long-term projects through exhibitions, films, publications, archival research, and dialogue.
Founders
Shingo Shimada
Shingo Shimada, born in Osaka in 1957, was professor of modern Japanese studies at Heinrich-Heine-University until 2023. His works move between social sciences, cultural studies, and art. Thematically, he connects family micro-stories with perspective of globalhistory, with transnational migration movements playing a central role.
Silvia Y. Tam
Silvia Y. Tam, born in Hong Kong in 1987 and based in Düsseldorf, is a visual artist whose practice explores the instability of reality—how images, memory, language, and imagination continually reshape what appears to be real. Working across image, text, and research, she often begins with fragments of personal and historical experience, tracing how what is absent, displaced, or imagined continues to act upon the present.