Rika Noguchi began working as a photographer in 1992, graduating from the Nihon University College of Art with a degree in photography two years later. In 1995, she won top prize at the 5th 3.3m² (Hitotsubo) exhibition for Record of Creation (1995). In 1996, her series To Dive (1995) was awarded the Grand Prize at the 5th New Cosmos of Photography exhibition. Noguchi held a solo exhibition, A Prime, at P3 art and environment in Tokyo in 1997. In 1998, she stayed in New York on an Asian Cultural Council fellowship. She was selected as a 1999–2000 guest artist at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (State Academy of Fine Arts), Amsterdam. In 2002, she was a recipient of the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists. Her solo exhibition I Dreamt of Flying was held in 2004 at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Noguchi stayed in Germany and east Africa the following year on a Pola Art Foundation fellowship. In 2009, The Light was held at the National Art Center, Tokyo, featuring her work and that of Yoko Matsumoto. Noguchi’s solo exhibition Light Reaching the Future ran from 2011 to 2012 at Izu Photo Museum, Shizuoka. My Father’s Album / Small Miracles was held at Gallery916, Tokyo, in 2014. In 2016, Noguchi relocated to Naha, Okinawa, where she remains based. In 2022 and 2023, she held an exhibition at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Small Miracles, covering her career to date.

In the 1990s, Noguchi emerged as a new force in Japanese photography with her work exploring human interactions with unknown realms—from under the sea to high altitudes and even outer space. Her series To Dive (1995) brought her wider recognition as a photographer. She began creating it after chancing upon someone in diving gear by Tokyo Bay and following them; the resulting work encapsulates her themes and interests in encounters with uncharted territories as an extension of the everyday. Her subsequent A Prime (1997–) is another major early series in which she climbs Mount Fuji in search of the closest location in Japan to outer space. Noguchi’s work fundamentally emerges out of movement and travel, and the act of searching for incidents or the subjects of her own interests. Her photographs record the processes of her personal discoveries and realizations. This style continues to be found in her recent photography like Small Miracles (2014/22) and Fish and Snake (2021) and the video works A Budworm (2019) and Insects / Leaves / Songs of Birds (2020). Noguchi’s photography and moving image works present the richness of the world around us, starting from small, everyday mysteries or from things that she encounters in the places where she stays. Replete with sensitivity toward the invisible as well as a unique humor, her work is furnished with the ability to release the sensations and imagination of the viewer.

In Noguchi’s practice, the cameras she uses for each series play a major role in the character of the work. Noguchi has described her style of using different cameras, including a panoramic camera, underwater camera, pinhole camera, and even an endoscope, not to mention a half-frame 35 mm camera that belonged to her late father: “It’s like I’m guided by the camera and it takes me to various worlds.”

Noguchi’s work is included in such public collections as the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; National Museum of Art, Osaka; Tokyo Photographic Art Museum; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa; the Guggenheim; Centre Pompidou; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She has also received commissions to produce public projects, such as for a residency at Reborn-Art Festival 2019 (Ishinomaki and other locations in Miyagi) and Nishi 2-chome Underground Walkway Video Production Project (Sapporo Cultural Arts Community Center SCARTS).