Haruka Doi

Biography

Haruka Doi was born in 1962 in Kanagawa Prefecture. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts. Her filmmaking activities began when in a contemporary art class, she recorded a film of white cloth fluttering in the wind with 8mm film to fulfil a brief of "making a work with white cloth." Doi belonged to the university’s filmmaking society, where she made both solo and collaborative work and held screenings on campus. While studying at Tokyo University of the Arts, Doi also attended the ninth term of Image Forum's Imaging Research Institute. He Was Here, and You Are Here (中のあなた、今のあなた), a work created as an assignment there, won a prize at the Pia Film Festival in 1986 and in the same year won the top prize in the Turin International Young Film Festival 8mm Overseas Division. Doi participated in regular screenings of "STUDIO SWI'TZ", a video group consisting of graduates of the Image Forum affiliated video research institute, and continued to create works at a pace of around one per year. In 1989, she appeared as an actress in Akira Hoshino's feature film Senaka de Shinako. At the same time, she began making music: writing lyrics, composing songs and playing the guitar under the alias HALUKA (later HALUKA unit). Film screenings and live concerts were held at Gallery Cherubim in Ginza, Voyant Cinemathèque in Kyoto, Seibu Studio 200 in Ikebukuro, and Ikebukuro Bungeiza. In 1994, Doi released her final film, Father, burned ( 父が、燃えた) at her solo video exhibition at Kunitachi Kino Kyuhe, which included a live performance as HALUKA. Since then, she has not produced any film or video works, and has devoted herself to her music activities.