Mariko Mori's work is like a huge reference to cosplay.

Mori is more into the futuristic side of cosplay, preferring to dress up as aliens, robots and fantastic deities. She then photographs large self portraits in these costumes. In other words, she and her art are incredibly cool.

There is also a religious side to her work. She photoshops herself as a flying god and makes herself Buddha-y. But not your average, levitating, chubby-cute Buddha. Mori becomes this futuristic space Buddha. Some call it sacrilege. We call it badass. But why, you may ask, does Mori insist on these crazy, wild self portraits? Well, it all started when Mori was a fashion model in Tokyo while studying at Bunka Fashion College. She got over that really quickly and then moved to London to study at Chelsea College of Art and Design. After graduating, Mori attended the independent study program at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She currently splits her time between Tokyo, London and New York...as one does.

Mori moved onto more life- and death-like art after having experienced sleep paralysis. She explains, “It was as if my consciousness had begun the program leading to death. I lost my sight and my hearing, I had a strange sensation of streams, and then I began to recall, in a short time, my entire life backward until the moment of my birth, or even before my birth. Then, suddenly I found myself in complete darkness. It took me a long time to regain consciousness. I passed through this stage and experienced the whole process of coming back.” Needless to say this was a big influencer on Mori’s art because ever since then she has been thinking about whatever TF that was and why it happened. She now looks “at death from the other side.” This may also have been the catalyst to the fact that Mori wears exclusively white clothing. She may or may not believe that she is a ghost.

Mori is also working on a project to put a public art installation on every inhabited continent on Earth. Her goal is to raise awareness about the pristine nature of nature and encourage humans to not be so gross and stupid. It may have been better to leave the beauty of the locations picked as they were, because Earth doesn’t really need decorating, but it was a good intention.