Born in Hyogo Prefecture (Japan), based in Kyoto.

Completed postgraduate studies at Kyoto City University of Arts. Since the latter half of the 1990s young women, often clad in special makeup, have been a recurring motif in her staged photographic works sometimes altered by computer. Among these, the "Elevator Girls" series depicting usherettes in uniform lingering a commercial spaces, drew particular attention from the art world. Since 2000 that output has included the "My Grandmothers" series exploring how women dream they will look in 50 years' time, and the "Fairy Tale" series depicting stories in which both young girls and old women appear. While each of her works shows a deep insight into issues of concern to many women, such as gender, youth and age, beauty and ugliness, they also reflect a theatrical interest in narrative and setting.
Yanagi has had solo exhibitions at the Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art (2004), the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (2005), the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, the National Museum of Art, Osaka (2009) and other public museums around Japan, as well as overseas, in Germany, the USA, etc. She was Japan Pavilion representative at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009).
Yanagi became involved in theater performances in 2010, and started a new theater project in 2011. Her works such as the trilogy "1924," which portrays the infancy of the new art movement in Japan during the Taisho era (1912-1926), and "PANORAMA," featuring the panorama exhibition halls popular in the late Meiji era (1868-1912) are performed both in theaters and museums.