Installed in the basement of the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, Umi Ishihara’s Nocturnal Hole invites us into a world of nocturnal beings that awaken after dark. The installation unfolds across two spaces connected by a narrow tunnel.

In the first space, the video work Nocturnal Melody is presented. Blending documentary and fiction, the work follows Eri and Catalina, two dancers based in Tokyo. Moving between dressing rooms, the stage, and the club, the film captures Moving between dressing rooms, the stage, and the club, the film captures the stories they share about childhood, dreams, and politics. Rather than portraying them as vulnerable figures, Ishihara is drawn to independence, physical strength, and assertive self-expression that stripping demands. Seated on fluorescent pink stools reminiscent of pole dance club stages, visitors encounter a nocturnal world where performing, working, flirting, and socialising merge into one.

A tunnel leads into the second room, into the blue glow of Nocturnal Breath. Banknotes are scattered across the floor, while figures in pearlescent skinsuits dance, bump into one another, and move like animals through the blue light. Here, the boundary between dancer and animal dissolves, and the night becomes a space of liberation where suppressed identities find strength and freedom. Through this world that comes alive only after dark, Ishihara connects vulnerability with pleasure, revealing the emancipatory potential of those who exist at society's margins.