Mayumi Arai (*1988) is an artist and interdisciplinary researcher. She grew up near the Tama River on the border between Tokyo and Kanagawa, where she spent her childhood searching for crayfish and freshwater crabs, and later often cycled along the river to Tokyo Bay and through the Kawasaki industrial area.
She holds a PhD in Fine Art from the Tokyo University of the Arts (JP), where her research focused on artistic collaboration. Her practice is based on collaborative and research-based methods and involves artists, scientists and local communities. Since 2015, she has been working with Nina Willimann as part of the artist duo Willimann/Arai, developing site- and context-specific projects that critically examine modern and colonial dichotomies, including West/East, self/other and nature/culture. Her works have been exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Helmhaus Zurich (CH), the Taipei Fine Arts Museum (TW) and the Ming Contemporary Art Museum (CN), and are held in the public collection of the City of Zurich. She has received national and international grants, including funding from the Japanese government (2022–2024), worked on an SNSF-funded project at IfCAR, ZHdK (2024–2025) and currently teaches on the MA in Transdisciplinary Studies and the Minor in Transcultural Collaboration at ZHdK.