This article appeared in Tokyo Weekender Vol. 2, 2025.
To read the entire issue, click here.
In the ever-shifting landscape of contemporary art and photography, multidisciplinary creative Boa Campbell moves with rare fluidity between worlds. With Euro-Japanese heritage and Australian roots, Campbell creates work that embodies the tension of existing between cultures.
As a creative director, filmmaker, director, producer and photographer, she’s cultivated her own visual language that feels both dreamlike and grounded. Her images juxtapose traditional and modern elements with striking intimacy — whether capturing subjects in sharp, geometric silhouettes against the electric pulse of Kabukicho’s neon maze; positioning figures in sleek, obsidian, samurai-like garments against the imposing staircase of a Japanese temple; transforming models into exotic birds with sculptural attire against a lush jungle backdrop; or freezing the moment billowing fabrics catch wind on a sunny Parisian rooftop.
Campbell’s creative journey has taken her all over the globe — she recently relocated to Paris after six years in Tokyo. Through our conversation, we explore how her cross-cultural perspective shapes her distinctive visual style and her approach to capturing authenticity in an increasingly curated world.
Between Worlds
“I was a hallway person,” Campbell says of growing up biracial in Australia. “I had keys to many doors but no fixed home.” The daughter of a strict Osaka-born mother and Australian father, she spent her early childhood in an off-the-grid community in the mountains of outer eastern Victoria, Melbourne. However, after the local school closed down, she had to finish elementary school in the closest country town, where she first encountered racism and identity struggles.
At first, she felt a sense of not fully belonging anywhere, leaving her disoriented, but this in-between existence eventually became her creative superpower. “I used to feel torn between cultures, like I had to choose a side, but over time I realized the dissonance is actually a kind of key. It lets me create a hybrid without adhering strictly to one or another.”
This appears in her visual approach, where she creates images that feel both familiar and slightly otherworldly. “It’s not about mixing for the sake of it,” she says. “It’s more like shape-shifting — absorbing the energy of a place, letting it rewire how I see and then letting that show up in the work.”
Finding Her Way
Campbell’s creative spark ignited early. “I was always cutting up fashion magazines as a teen,” she remembers with a laugh. “Making what I now know were moodboards before I even knew what they were.”
She first encountered photography in high school, but didn’t immediately click with the medium — “the technical side clouded the poetry,” she says. A supportive media arts teacher later sparked her interest in visual storytelling, and she started making documentaries about Melbourne’s electronic music scene, editing them onto VHS tapes. “That early encouragement cracked something open. Later, in university, I leaned deeper into photography and film — quietly building the visual language that felt like mine.”
After graduating, Campbell moved overseas to Sardinia, then Dubai. Then, following her father’s passing in 2016, India became an unexpected sanctuary. “India’s intensity — chaotic, vibrant and open — was a lifeline,” she explains. “Unlike Dubai’s polished vibe, India’s raw energy [really] fueled my creativity.”
Japan, her next home, offered different inspiration through its visual richness and attention to detail. “Japan’s visual intensity — the typography and colors everywhere — inspires me daily,” she notes.
Now based in Paris, Campbell is discovering yet another creative rhythm. “Paris feels quieter, less visually stimulating, but it’s refreshing socially after Japan’s isolation,” she observes. “There’s a dialogue, a roughness, a humor that brings out a different side of me.”
Tales From The Bridge
When Campbell talks about her filmmaking, her eyes light up. Her short film series Tales From the Bridge, which she started working on in 2023, represents a new chapter in her artistic output; it’s perhaps her most intimate work to date.
The first installment, “Tales From The Bridge: The Artist & The Muse,” shot in Tokyo’s Nakano district, follows a calligrapher and her muse through a wordless narrative about connection and intimacy. Over the course of seven minutes, the viewer watches as The Artist abandons her calligraphy paper, opting instead to leave her designs on the skin of The Muse, culminating in an ecstatic embrace.
Shot in black and white, mostly in breathtaking close-ups, it’s elegant, sensual and saturated in a sense of longing, suffused with the desire to touch and be touched. Now, Campbell is working on the second film in the series, titled “Tales From The Bridge: The Misfit.” This project represents an even deeper exploration of her Japanese heritage through her own perspective: that of the misfit, someone who doesn’t belong anywhere, yet belongs everywhere.
Working on the first film in the series proved to be a profoundly emotional experience. “I cried so much making that thing,” Campbell says. The final product is slow, sensuous and stripped down. “I’m resistant to over-editing or flashy transitions in film,” she says. “They can age quickly. I prefer clean cuts, timeless frames and small moments that breathe.”
This film has already received international recognition, winning awards and reaching semi-finalist status at independent film festivals across Italy, France and Australia.
The Balancing Act
Although she dabbles in many mediums — beyond film and fashion and lifestyle photography, she’s also done art directing, graphic design and even origami — Campbell doesn’t rely solely on her art to support herself. She also does voiceover work, which provides steady income while protecting her visual creativity.
“Relying solely on visual projects in Dubai burned me out, zapping my passion,” she explains. “Voice work lets me be selective with visual projects, keeping my creativity alive without financial pressure.”
When selecting projects, Campbell gravitates toward visual intensity, anything that elicits a strong reaction. “I’m drawn in by an emotion, a strange object, a face that holds a world,” she says. “I like things that feel heightened — visually or emotionally. A bit surreal, a bit intense.”
Given her protean output — the way in which she incorporates new cultures and experiences into her creative vision — Campbell is in a state of constant evolution, always primed to learn or try something new. When asked what advice she’d offer younger creatives, the artist responds, “Enjoy the process, not just accolades. I got caught up in proving myself, but that’s not sustainable.”
She recalls a Hunter S. Thompson quote: “But why not float if you have no goal? That is another question. It is unquestionably better to enjoy the floating than to swim in uncertainty.”
“Be kind to yourself, and don’t let pressure overwhelm you,” she adds.
More Info
Find Boa Campbell on Instagram or check out her work on her website.
