Yurie Nagashima was catapulted to fame while studying at Musashino Art University in 1993 when she won the Parco Prize at the 2nd Urbanart exhibition for her Self Portrait series, which photographed her family in the nude at her parents’ home. In 2001, she won the 26th Kimura Ihei Photography Award for her photobook PASTIME PARADISE. In 2010, she won the 26th Kodansha Essay Prize for her short story collection, Memories of a Back (Senaka no kioku), which drew on the motifs of her childhood, expanding the scope of her activities beyond the realm of photography. In 2020, she published From ‘Their’ ‘Girl Photos’ to Our Girly Photos (‘Bokura’ no ‘onna no ko shashin’ kara watashitachi no gārī foto e) – which reviewed the discourse surrounding Japanese women photographers of the 1990s from a gendered perspective – to considerable attention.

Since her debut, Y. Nagashima has used her work to interrogate her own feelings of discomfort towards the state of ‘women’ and ‘family’ in society. Grounded in a personal perspective that combines radicality with refinement, Y. Nagashima’s expressive form is primarily supported by the younger generations, though her international reputation has risen in recent years.

In 2017, Y. Nagashima held her first exhibition at a public art exhibition with Nagashima Yurie: And a Pinch of Irony with a Hint of Love (Nagashima Yurie: soshite hitotsumami no hiniku to, ai o shōshō), at the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. This was a mid-career retrospective solo exhibition that brought together her early series of self-portraits and works on the theme of family; empty white room, a collection of snapshots featuring 1990s youth culture; works she created while studying abroad in the USA; not six, which depicts a man she encounters becoming her boyfriend, her husband and then a father; a series on plants produced during her 2007 artist-in-residence stay in Switzerland; and new works focused on the life course of women.

In 2018, the exhibition To Create, To Bring Up as a Mother and Artist　Yurie Nagashima (Sakka de, haha de　tsukuru  sodateru  Nagashima Yurie) was held at the Chihiro Art Museum in Tokyo. In 2019, following the solo exhibition The flower named in an unknown word The landscape not in my memory The book that can not be readby my fingers(Shiranai kotoba no hana no namae  kioku ni nai fūkei  watashi no yubi ni yomenai hon) at the Yokohama Civic Art Gallery Azamino, Y. Nagashima held a two-man show, Now ⇆ Then (Mae  to  ima), at the Museum of Modern Art, Gunma with Kei Takemura (b. 1975).

In 2020, Y. Nagashima won the Domestic Photographer Prize at the 36th Higashikawa Awards. In 2021, she served as the guest curator for the show Countermeasures Against Awkward Discourses: From the Perspective of Third Wave Feminism (Gikochinai kaiwa e no taiiwa e no taiōsaku—dai-san-ha feminizumu no shiten de), which was held at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. For the exhibition, Y. Nagashima focused on ten artists, including herself, who had been working since the 1990s, finding new possibilities for interpreting their works from the perspective of feminism.

2023, she staged a mutual learning project on the theme of ‘Care’, School of Care (Kea no gakkō), at the Minatomachi POTLUCK BUILDING in Nagoya City. In order to consider ‘care’ of self and others, and to put said ‘care’ into practice, she did not merely exhibit works but opened the venue to the public as her personal studio. Through a variety of events, including discussion sessions, reading groups and lectures, she facilitated a series of exchanges with the local population and visitors to the area. In the same year, Y. Nagashima published a collection of interlinked stories entitled The Today of Last Year (Kyonen no kyō).

In 2024, she participated in the group exhibition Does the Future Sleep Here? (Koko wa mirai no ātisuto-tachi ga nemuru heya to nariete kita ka?). For this first contemporary art exhibition held at the museum since its opening in 1959, Y. Nagashima presented an installation piece linking works in the museum’s collection with her School of Careproject. In the same year, she participated in the group exhibition I’m So Happy You Are Here: Japanese Women Photographers from the 1950s to Now at the Les Rencontres d’Arles International Photography Festival, among other engagements, maintaining an active presence in the field.