“New Worlds” – Group Exhibition of the 7th Women to Watch Candidate Artists
Schedule
Early Spring 2021 NMWA Japan Committee Formed
The committee was formed with the goal of supporting gender equality through the arts and to showcase the work of a Japanese woman artist in the 7th Women to Watch group exhibition in Washington, DC in 2024.
May 2021 Contributing Curator Announced
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum curator Tomoko Yabumae was chosen as curator to select three to five candidate artists to exhibit in the 7th "Women to Watch.
March 1, 2022 Five Women Candiadates from Japan Announced
Tomoko Yabumae recommended the works of five young artists, Natsumi Aoyagi, Asako Fujikura, Ai Hasegawa, Umi Ishihara, and Shiori Watanabe.
March, 2023 The Artist from Each Region Announced
One artist from each region will be selected by the curators of the NMWA in Washington, DC.
Candidate Artists
Natsumi Aoyagi
Born in Tokyo. Graduated from Department of New Media, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts. Selected exhibitions include ‘Her Rights: The Turk of Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus’ at NTT Intercommunication Center [ICC] (2019), Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions 2018: Mapping the Invisible at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2018) and ‘Logbook of a Sea Goddess’ at Towada Art Center’s satellite venue, ‘space’ (2022). She also leads practitioners’ collectives, Honkbooks.
“Our world today is recorded and logged by a variety of media. Natsumi Aoyagi's work focuses on how to preserve the very individual sense of capturing small changes in our daily lives while being aware of the existence of impersonal viewpoints that surround us. How can we capture such small changes, like the hatching of a butterfly, and make them our own – or is that impossible? Her works are a series of attempts to imprint the warm and alive workings of human beings on a daily basis within the context of the current world situation.” – T.Y.
Works
Asako Fujikura
Born in Saitama Prefecture. After graduated from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies with a B.A. in Farsi, she also graduated from Department of New Media, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts. Her work using 3DCG animation techniques focuses on the infrastructures that cross-sectorally streamline the urban and suburban areas as well as the intricacy of the coexisting landscapes. From 2021, she leads a research project ‘Temae No Gake No Banpuru’, which themed around distribution of goods and garden. Selected solo exhibitions include ‘Paradise for Free’ at Calm & Punk Gallery (2021). Selected group exhibitions include ‘The Museum in the Multi-layered World’ at NTT Inter Communication Center [ICC] (2021) and ‘Back Tokyo Forth’ at Tokyo International Cruise Terminal (2021).
“Asako Fujikura was born in an industrial neighborhood in the suburbs of the Tokyo metropolitan area and grew up in a landscape of developing infrastructure. Inspired by this childhood landscape, she creates 3DCG animated images of extremely colorful spaces. For her, the unique movements of uninhabited space with fragments of urban infrastructure, such as highways and sewers, create a primordial landscape that transcends nature and artifacts, human and non-human, offering a vision of paradise that liberates us from the limited life of human beings.” – T.Y.
Works
Ai Hasegawa
Born in Shizuoka prefecture. Studied media arts and animation at Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Science in Gifu Prefecture (IAMAS). She earned an M.A. from Royal College of Arts in Interaction Design. She was also a research fellow in Design Fiction Group at MIT Media Lab (2017 -2020) where she received an M.S. in 2016. She worked as a project researcher at The University of Tokyo (2017 -2020), Jichi Medical University (2020 to present) and Kyoto Institute of Technology (2020 to present). Currently, Hasegawa is an adjunct lecturer at Waseda University (2019 to present) and works both as an artist and designer.
“Ai Hasegawa has produced a number of experimental works based on bio-art and speculative design, using biological issues and technological progress as motifs to make proposals for a better future. These works, which humorously examine the various conditions of human relationships, including themes such as love, reproduction, gender, and catastrophe, have become sharp critiques of issues in contemporary society.” – T.Y.
Works
Umi Ishihara
Born in Tokyo. She received her B.F.A. in Intermedia-Art from Tokyo University of the Arts and is now taking a leave of absence from Artist’s Film Program at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work focuses on video that intersects fiction and documentary while capturing gender, personal history and society. Selected solo exhibitions include ‘Gravity and Radiance’ at Shiseido Gallery (2021) and ‘Mire of Dickhead Demon’ at TAV Gallery (2017). Selected screenings include ‘Gravity and Radiance’ in the 14th Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions at Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (2022), feature-length film ‘The Garden Apartment’, and short film ‘The Pioneer’ at Rotterdam International Film Festival (2019). She received grants from BBC/BFI for directing her film ‘Janitor of Lunacy’ (2019), and also from Ezoe Recruit Memorial Foundation (2018-2020), and Pola Art Foundation (2023). Selected awards include Contemporary Art Foundation (CAF) Award, and Teiya Iwabuchi Award (2016).
“Based on her personal history and relationships, Umi Ishihara explores gender, poverty, and other social issues. One of her major works titled ‘Gravity and Radiance’ set its story in a church that saves people suffering from poverty. Living with those who are isolated from their own families or local communities, she uses them as her motifs and explores new ways of living and coexisting.” – T.Y.
Works
Shiori Watanabe
Born in Tokyo. She graduated from Chuo University with a B.A. in French Literature. She received an M.F.A. in sculpture from Tokyo University of the Arts. Selected exhibitions include ‘Dyadic Stem’ curated by Yu Takagi, The 5th Floor (2020), ‘Non Human Control’ at TAV Gallery (2020) and a solo show, ‘Bebe’, curated by Ryuta Ushiro of Chim↑Pom at White House (2021).
“By inserting motifs that imply friction between the biological environment and human society, such as alien species, purebred species, and extinct species, Shiori Watanabe evokes multi-layered metaphors for the viewer, such as racial issues, the imperial system, and visions of the future after human extinction. Her major works include “Sans room”, where she recreates, maintains and circulates autonomous ecosystems in the water from the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and then multiplies the biospheres.” – T.Y.
Works
Curator
Tomoko Yabumae
Born in Tokyo. Curator at Tokyo Metropoilitan Museum.
Her major curitorial credits include: "Shinro Ohtake: Zen-Kei Retrospective 1955-2006"(2006), "Sayoko Yamaguchi: The Wearist, Clothed in the Future (2015)," "An Art Exhibition for Children: Whose place is this?" (2015), "MOT Annual 2019 Echo afer Echo: Summoned Voices, New Shadows" (2019), "Eiko Ishikoka: Blood Sweat and Tears - A Life of Design," and "Christian Marclay Translating" (2022).