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PRADA AOYAMA "SATELLITES"

“Satellites” is an exhibition conceived by Danish movie director Nicolas Winding Refn with Japanese game creator Hideo Kojima, presented at Prada Aoyama Tokyo from 18 April to 25 August 2025. A project organized with the support of Fondazione Prada and envisioned by the creative studio byNWR.

 

PRADA AOYAMA

18 April - 25 August 2025
5-2-6 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Monday to Sunday: 11am - 8pm

The collaboration between Refn and Kojima highlights their elective affinities, allowing them to transcend the individual dimension and overcome language barriers. The show transports visitors to a cinema-inspired interior set where suspended images of Refn and Kojima appear, locked in a contemplative conversation as they investigate the universal concept of human connection. The interrelation between two distant entities, also evoked by the metaphorical orbits of satellites in the exhibition title, is the focal point of the entire project. This topic resonates in Kojima’s game dynamics, where the connection of territories and people reshapes the idea of multiplayer, and in Refn’s cinematic poetics, where mental and affective concatenations transcend the logic of reality.

Both artists operate in the belief that today, the film and video game industries and processes tend to draw closer and overlap and, in the future, may merge into a shared digital dimension, offering new possibilities for individual or collective experiences.

The fifth floor of Prada Aoyama is transformed into a mid-century domestic space that transports visitors into an alternate dimension. The installation comprises six retro-futuristic televisions, where suspended images of Nicolas Winding Refn and Hideo Kojima engage in a deep and contemplative conversation. Their dialogue addresses many themes, including friendship, creative collaboration, new technologies and creativity, identity and communication, death and what remains afterwards. In the nearby dressing room a cassette player sits amid stacks of tapes. The tapes blend sound bites and cinema soundtracks, interwoven with alternate, AI-translated versions of Refn and Kojima’s conversation in various languages. Visitors piece together a unique, personalized version of the dialogue by sifting through the different languages on each tape.

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Director, writer, producer, and creator, Nicolas Winding Refn, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and raised in New York. At age 24 he wrote and directed the extremely violent and uncompromising, Pusher (1996), a cult phenomenon that won him instant international critical acclaim. His fimography includes Bleeder (1999), Fear X (2003), Pusher II and III (2004,2005), Bronson (2008), and Valhalla Rising (2009). In 2011, Nicolas Winding Refn was awarded Best Director at Cannes Film Festival for his masterpiece Drive (2011) and returned to Cannes with the controversial "Only God Forgives" (2013). In June 2015, NWR completed production on his most recent film, The Neon Demon, which also premiered in Official Competition of the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. In 2019, Refn created his first television series Too Old to Die Young (2019) which premiered on Amazon Prime, followed by the Netflix production, Copenhagen Cowboy (2023), a miniseries that was filmed in Copenhagen. The six-episode supernatural noir-thriller first premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2022. The same year, Prada tapped Refn to create a short film and installation for their SS23 women’s collection, of which he created a short film entitled Touch of Crude. The film premiered at the the LIFF - León Internacional Film Festival in 2023. Most recently, Refn premiered a short film advertisement at the Venice Film Festival in 2024 for luxury motorcycle brand, MV Agusta, entitled Beauty Is Not A Sin. The cinematic ad film was the first of its kind to premiere at the revered festival and was screened alongside the revival premiere of Refn’s debut, Pusher, during the 2024 Venice Classics Competition.

Hideo Kojima is a world-renowned game creator and auteur known for pushing the boundaries of the video game medium. Widely considered the father of the stealth genre, he is also credited with innovating both storytelling and cinematic presentation in video games at large. On December 16th, 2015, Hideo Kojima established his own studio called KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS, under the banner of "From Sapiens to Ludens.” On November 8th, 2019, the studio released its first title, DEATH STRANDING, starring Norman Reedus, Mads Mikkelsen, Léa Seydoux, and Lindsay Wagner for PlayStation®4 and PC. DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR’S CUT was later released for the PlayStation®5, PC, iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Since its release, DEATH STRANDING has received numerous game awards and achieved worldwide acclaim. A June 26th, 2025 release date has been announced for its sequel, DEATH STRANDING 2: ON THE BEACH.  Other exciting projects include the title OD, in partnership with Xbox Game Studios, as well as a film adaptation of DEATH STRANDING with independent entertainment company A24, and a completely new and original action-espionage IP, PHYSINT (working title). In 2020, Hideo Kojima received the BAFTA Fellowship, the highest accolade bestowed by BAFTA upon an individual in recognition of exceptional contribution to film, games, or television.  In 2022, the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Japanese government honored Hideo Kojima with the 72nd Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award for Fine Arts in the media arts category, given to those who have made outstanding achievements and advancements in the arts. Other notable honors include the Hall of Fame award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (D.I.C.E. Awards), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards, and the Industry Icon award from The Game Awards.

Image credits
Exhibition views “Satellites” Ph Yasuhiro Takagi
Portraits of Nicholas Winding Refn and Hideo Kojima Ph Daisuke Takeda

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