TOKYO, JAPAN, 30 OCTOBER 2025 – CHARLES & KEITH marks the next chapter of its residency with acclaimed Singaporean multi-disciplinary artist Robert Zhao Renhui through a new commissioned retail experience project titled “deer of tokyo”. The work will be showcased at the brand’s Japan flagship in Shibuya from 29 October to 10 November 2025, coinciding with arts related festivities in the market including the Tokyo Biennale and Tokyo Art Week.
Following the debut of “The Museum of Everything Else” in Hong Kong earlier this year — where CHARLES & KEITH and Robert Zhao, through his artistic organisation The Institute of Critical Zoologists (ICZ), reimagined the retail environment as a lens into the market’s distinct ecological and cultural fabric — the brand now deepens its dialogue with the artist in Tokyo. The residency project draws a parallel between the specificity of the host city and Zhao’s practice of revealing how nature and urban life are never separate but deeply intertwined: While in Hong Kong, the mixed media installation was inspired by the resilience of non-human life in a city where nature is never far away; the new work for Tokyo evolves this exploration into a contemplative, hybrid space that merges the codes of fashion display with themes of ecological remnants, fading presence, and fabricated ecosystems.
“deer of tokyo” reflects Zhao’s long-term research into two deer-like species that inhabit Japan: the Japanese Serow, a native mountain-dwelling goat-antelope found in highland forests surrounding Tokyo, and the Muntjac, a small, introduced deer species with wild populations on Izu Ōshima, part of the Tokyo Metropolis. The project meditates on themes of species trace, disappearance, and constructed habitats, inviting visitors to reflect on how animals move through — and sometimes vanish from — the margins of human-altered landscapes.
Visitors will encounter an immersive corner of the store designed to slow the pace of retail, where a video work by Zhao plays alongside pedestal vitrines of ephemeral natural materials gathered from his field sites, which includes seeds, pressed plants, feathers, bark, and glass shards – poetic fragments that serve as physical traces of ecological movement and marginal habitats.
“Tokyo presents a unique case where two very different deer-like species exist side by side — one native and one introduced. Their stories reflect broader ideas of belonging, displacement, and resilience. By placing traces of these animals in the middle of Shibuya, I want to create a space that slows down time, a reminder that other worlds and ecologies exist within and around our cities.” said Zhao, with regards to the inspiration behind the work.
To realise the site-specific installation within the CHARLES & KEITH retail environment, Zhao has also partnered with students from ICS College of Arts, a specialist school for interior, furniture design and architecture in Tokyo, to create bespoke furniture pieces that shape the contemplative environment within the store. Display pedestals were conceived to hold delicate natural traces for close, intimate observation; whilst a sculptural viewing chair integrating deadstock fabrics from the brand’s Fall Winter 2025 collection, encourages visitors to engage in focused, contemplative video viewing. Together, these pieces merge utilitarian design with sensibility, grounding the space in a language of fieldwork and taxonomy with the brand’s minimalist ethos. Following the exhibition run, the furniture will then go on showcase at the CHARLES & KEITH’s Omotesando boutique for an extended display, highlighting the seasonal collection.
Discover “deer of tokyo” at the CHARLES & KEITH Shibuya Flagship Store, 17-3, Udagawacho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo-to, Japan from 29 October to 10 November 2025.
