Talents Tokyo is a program to develop young filmmakers in Asia by providing lectures and workshops. We are presenting interviews with past participants in line with a call for applications (from 5/1-5/31) for the 2022 academic year.

In part two, we speak with Kaori Oda, a finisher of the program in 2015, who is gaining recognition in Japan and abroad for her feature film ARAGANE (2015), which focuses on a coal mine in Bosnia, and Cenote (2017), about an underwater cave in Mexico. Asagi Kimura, the Talents Tokyo Award 2021 winner, says she was influenced by this director.

Talents Tokyo is a program for young people in the Asian region to develop filmmakers and producers organized by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Arts Council Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture), and the Talents Tokyo Organizing Committee. It is a workshop for participants to polish their own projects and acquire skills so they can be active on the world stage. In line with a call for participants (from May 1-31) for the 2022 year, we interviewed Asagi Kimura, winner of the Talents Tokyo Award 2021, to talk about her experience under Talents Tokyo. Part two features Kaori Oda, a finisher of the program in 2015, whose documentary films Aragane (2015) and Cenote (2017) are gaining recognition both in Japan and abroad.

A museum where visitors can encounter mammals, fish, insects, and other creatures opened in Tokyo’s Ginza in July 2021. Its name is Zukan Museum Ginza. Living creatures that inhabit every corner of the globe, from the northern to southern hemispheres, appear in spaces that reproduce their environment. This is a report on an unprecedented and new museum experience made possible by technology and creativity.

A new theater, THEATRE for ALL (hereinafter referred to as TfA), was established in February 2021 midst of the severe situation of COVID-19. Its stage is not near a train station nor inside a shopping mall. It is in a place easily accessible from anywhere — yes, on the Internet. This article introduces the efforts behind TfA, an online theater created with “accessibility” in mind, allowing anyone to enjoy its works anytime and anywhere.

A new series of articles featuring the voices of gallerists. This column introduces the features of each gallery, how to meet artists, what to look for in their works, and trends in the art market.

The gallerists featured in this series are directors of galleries established in the past few years in Tokyo and belong to the Contemporary Art Dealers Association of Nippon (CADAN). The first is Tsuyoshi Ueda of TALION GALLERY. The word “talion” in the gallery’s name expresses Ueda’s desire to find a principle that will generate new connections among people, authorities, and languages consisting art scene. It is marked by its style of presenting exhibition concepts from a highly critical perspective and curating works of multiple artists.

What is the gallerists’ perspective on the forefront of Tokyo art scene? This series is also a must-read for aspiring gallerists.

Kadokawa Culture Museum, a multi-cultural complex featuring art, natural history and books, opened in Tokorozawa City, Saitama Prefecture, in November 2020. It was built as a landmark of Tokorozawa Sakura Town, the base of the COOL JAPAN FOREST concept, a regional development project jointly promoted by Tokorozawa City and the KADOKAWA entertainment company, which set up a new office in the same area.

In a small corner of Shinjuku, Tokyo’s bustling office and entertainment district with the country’s largest train station, is Shinjuku Golden Gai, a neighborhood of restaurants and bars that has fostered a unique post-war culture. It was here that Naoki Ishikawa, about to graduate from university and searching for a way to present his photographs to the world, had a fateful encounter with photographer Daido Moriyama.

“Blinkin’ Beats – The World of Rhythms You Doodle with Sounds and Light” was a music workshop held on Sunday, September 5, 2021, at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan. It was the first collaboration of “ratatap,” an installation work created by Junichi Kanebako, an artist who produces disability-friendly musical instruments that people with or without disabilities can play together, and the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Workshop Leaders (hereafter WSL). The participants enjoyed the “visible sounds” of cute characters called Otodama-kun, which appeared when they made sounds.

The theme of the second installment of our series exploring the world of free newspapers is PASSION. Here we introduce a free newspaper by a man who delves into his interest with passion and gets across the fun of it. It’s called Jomon-Zine, and it conveys interesting aspects of the Jomon period (ca. 14,000 BC – 10th century BC) to modern people who are used to urban culture. We spoke with Akihide Mochizuki, who runs a design office while also serving as editor-in-chief of Jomon-Zine.

In 2019, Taro Yasuno was selected to represent Japan at the Venice Biennale along with several other artists to participate in the exhibition. His representative work is Zombie Music. We asked him about his journey from college graduation to becoming an artist.

The year 2021 marks the 160th anniversary of the death of Kuniyoshi Utagawa, an ukiyo-e artist who was active in the late Edo period (around 1853 –1868). In his day, he was very popular as the leading creator of musha-e (warrior pictures) depicting brave and powerful men. This installment traces his journey from his period of obscurity when recognition was hard to come by, to his arrival as an artist who amazed the people of Edo.

Throughout the Meiji period (1868-1912) as Japan took major steps toward modernization, the great literary figure Ogai Mori wrote of the psychology and spirituality of the Japanese people in his novels, plays, translations, and essays. He was a prolific writer and, as an army surgeon, he experienced the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War. Here, we take a look at Mori, the public figure who devoted himself to Japanese medicine and culture.

This series of articles presents art museums around the world that offer free online access to public domain works (intellectual property not protected by copyright) in their collections. In this fifth installment, we feature works from the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, a leading art museum in the U.S. ranking alongside The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The Art Institute of Chicago collection of over 300,000 works of art encompasses a vast range of art from around the world, dating from ancient times to the present. Masayuki Tanaka, director general of The National Museum of Western Art, introduces a few American contemporary art masterpieces from this vast collection.

Bauhaus, an art school established at the beginning of the 20th century, espoused a new form of art education more in line with modern lifestyles. Despite lasting just 14 years, this legendary school had an enormous influence on a wide range of fields from art to design and architecture, an impact that is still felt today.