PANDAwomen 2026: Kusama. The Room of Reflections

Kusama. The Room of Reflections
A lecture-concert featuring works by Karen Tanaka, Kate Moore, Meredith Monk, and others
Maria Nemtsova — piano
Ekaterina Rikota — commentary
What happens when we try to hear a painting – or see music?
In her series of artistic concerts, pianist Maria Nemtsova approaches an artist’s work neither as an illustration nor as a ready-made narrative for a musical programme. She first filters the visual experience through her own perception, immersing herself in the artist’s language, its inner logic, rhythms, and sense of space. She then selects music that resonates with this visual field.
In “Kusama. The Room of Reflections,” the point of departure is the work of Yayoi Kusama: a world of dots, repetition, reflections, and optical illusions – of spaces that multiply endlessly, only to dissolve within that very multiplicity. Maria Nemtsova brings Kusama’s artistic universe into dialogue with music by Karen Tanaka, Meredith Monk, and Kate Moore, exploring how similar creative devices can take shape in entirely different art forms.
This is not an attempt to find the “right soundtrack” for Kusama’s work. Rather, it is an invitation to bring two languages – the visual and the sonic – into conversation and to discover new connections between them.
Maria Nemtsova is an Amsterdam-based concert pianist who has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, and other leading venues around the world. Contemporary music and interdisciplinary projects at the intersection of music, theatre, and visual art hold a central place in her artistic practice. Nemtsova is a co-founder of the international Music for Peace project and the founder of Re:FormersFest.
Ekaterina Rikota is an art historian specialising in twelfth-century monumental painting and the theory of restoration. She previously headed the research department of an interregional academic institution for art restoration. Now based between Bonn and Berlin, she works in art-history education and museum education. Her research focuses on the ways in which art is perceived, and she is the creator of the educational project “Kunstgeschichte ohne Geschichte.”