MEET MAI
Artist, Educator, and Lifelong Learner
Hello! I'm Mai Ryuno.
My practice has evolved through teaching, collaboration, community engagement, and the creation of participatory environments.
Over time, I became increasingly interested in the space between art and everyday life — between learning and making, individual expression and collective experience.
Play Full Ground emerged from this ongoing inquiry.
Art as a Way of Being
For me, art extends beyond objects, exhibitions, or disciplines.
It can be a conversation, a question, a shared experience, a temporary gathering, or a relationship unfolding over time.
Through installation, performance, socially engaged projects, and learning environments, I have come to understand art as a way of paying attention and shaping conditions for meaningful encounters.
This continues to inform the work of Play Full Ground.
From Studio Practice
to Social Practice
My early training was in visual art and printmaking, where I learned to think through materials, process, and experimentation.
Over time, my practice shifted toward participation and collaboration.
Rather than creating work for an audience, I became interested in creating situations in which people could become contributors, collaborators, and co-creators.
This shift led to projects that blur the boundaries between art, education, community engagement, and everyday life.
Learning as Creative Practice
As an educator, I noticed that some of the most meaningful learning experiences emerge not from instruction, but from curiosity, dialogue, experimentation, and shared discovery.
The questions I was exploring as an artist began to overlap with those I encountered in learning environments:
How do people learn?
How do ideas emerge?
What conditions support creativity, agency, and belonging?
How might learning itself become an artistic practice?
Play Full Ground grew from these questions.
Why Play Full Ground
Play Full Ground is not a school, studio, or organization in a conventional sense.
It is an ongoing investigation into how creativity, participation, and collective imagination can shape more meaningful ways of learning and living together.
I think of it as a living practice that evolves through the people, relationships, and experiences that emerge within it.
My role is not to determine what it becomes, but to cultivate conditions in which it can continue to grow.
Background
Born in Fukuoka, Japan
BA in English, Doshisha University
MFA in Printmaking, San Francisco Art Institute
Former educator at:
San Francisco Art Institute City Studio
UC Berkeley Y-PLAN
Monterey Peninsula College
Hartnell College
International Baccalaureate Visual Arts Examiner
I continue to learn through art, through community, and through the unexpected possibilities that emerge when people come together around a shared question.
