ROH is pleased to present Split Body, the gallery’s first solo exhibition of artist duo Ittah Yoda — Virginie Ittah (b. 1984, Paris) and Kai Yoda (b. 1985, Tokyo). Since meeting at the Royal College of Art in London, the artists have developed a collaborative practice grounded in virtual world-building and nomadic material research, creating multi-sensorial environments that unfold across media.
The exhibition features a new body of work spanning painting, sculpture, virtual reality, sound, and scent—inviting viewers into an interplay of the five senses. In Split Body, Ittah Yoda interrogate the boundaries of the body and its potential multiplicities—across physical, spiritual, and technological realms. Their collaborative process blurs individual authorship, merging multicultural perspectives into a shared artistic language, while maintaining distinct agency.
The concept of a “split” or rupture runs throughout: painting becomes a psychic terrain; virtual reality conjures disembodied sensations; scent activates affect and memory. Guided by the notion of the Symbiocene—an era of balanced coexistence between human and non-human forms—the exhibition imagines hybrid embodiments that defy binaries of natural/digital, real/unreal, and human/non-human.
Developed through two residencies with ROH—at DESA, Ubud (2024) and Rumah Tangga, Depok(2025)—Split Body folds together “genetic-artistic” material from Indonesia, Greece, and France into an evolving ecosystem. Through an accumulative journey of cultural and material gathering, the exhibition proposes forms of being that are yet to come.
ARTIST
Virgile Ittah. Born in 1984, Paris, France
Kai Yoda. Born in 1985, Tokyo, Japan
Ittah Yoda lives and works between Paris, Berlin and Tokyo
The duo Ittah Yoda, composed of Virgile Ittah and Kai Yoda, was formed following their meeting at the Royal College of London, where one studied sculpture while the other studied photography and animation. From their beginnings, fascinated by both natural and digital worlds, they began working on the idea of a post-anthropocene world where these two elements would coexist harmoniously in what they call the “symbiocene”. While virtual reality occupies a central place in their work, serving as a matrix and gestation process, all the forms that materialize later in painting, sculpture, and installation present themselves as an ecosystem in themselves, inspired by organic forms and materials and developed through collaborations with numerous artisans. Each Ittah Yoda project represents a step towards the realization of this ideal symbiotic ecosystem, where the mediums used, the objects created, embody and share “genetic-artistic” information from their environment. Although oriented towards an idea of the future, their work is rooted in art history, drawing in particular from references such as cave paintings and pigmentary painting techniques.
Their most recent solo presentation was a residency show Learning to Fly at Art Jakarta 2024, with ROH, Jakarta International Expo, Jakarta Indonesia (2024). Selected solo exhibitions include À l’Orée des Songes at Galerie Poggi, Paris, France (2023); Diplomaties Terrestres at Centre International d’Art et du Paysage, Île de Vassivière, Beaumont-du-Lac, France (2023); ALTER at Foreign and Domestic, New York, New York, USA (2022); Time sparkles and dream is knowledge at Double Séjour, Poush Manifesto, Paris, France (2021); No History of Its Own at Rupert at apiece, Vilnius, Lithuania (2021); Le contour de tes rêves at La Petite Galerie, Cite International des Arts, Paris, France (2020); body alights — a fragmented memory at Sprout Curation, Tokyo, Japan (2018); and I think mango you say salmon at Annka Kultys Gallery, London, UK (2016). Ittah Yoda has been included in a number of group exhibitions around the globe, to name a few are Liminal Crossing at Tang Contemporary, Beijing, China (2024); Arcadia at Bally Foundation, Lugano, China (2024); Artist Running Festival at Vou Kyoto x soda, Kyoto, Japan (2023); La Biennale de Nice: Power Flower at Le 109, Nice, France (2022); Mutation at Die Akademie Schloss Solitude, Shuttgart, Denmark (2021); and 06 at PM/AM Gallery, London, UK (2020). Their work is part of various institutions, including French institutions FRAC des Pays de la Loire, FRAC Artotheque Nouvelle Aquitaine, Château La Coste, and Poush Manifesto; M. Lewis Collection, London, UK; Sasanao Collection, Tokyo, Japan; Sigg Art Foundation, Geneva, Switzerlandk Misk Foundation, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Badia Nordenstahl Collection, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Copyright belongs to The Artists
Text by Exquisite Corpse
Courtesy of The Artists and ROH