Music critic, writes about music and the culture surrounding it for publications including iD-Japan, Eureka, OTOTOY, Mikiki, ele-king, The Sign Magazine, and Jazz The New Chapter. His younger brother is New Japan Pro-Wrestling wrestler Tetsuhiro Yagi.

Curator/ CEO NYAW inc./ Co-president of Tokyo Art Acceleration.
After working as a curator at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa and Contemporary Art Centre, Art Tower Mito, he became the director of ANB Tokyo and established NYAW Inc. Major exhibitions include ‘Hello World-for the Post-Human Age’ and ‘Resistance of Fog|Fujiko Nakaya’ (Art Tower Mito) and ‘The world began without the human race and it will end without it.’ (National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts). In addition to planning and consulting on culture/art-related projects such as the art festival ‘Meet Your Art Festival “NEW SOIL”‘ organised by avex, Music Loves Art in Summer Sonic and the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Cultural Economy Strategy Promotion Project, he also supervises art programmes and features in magazines and on TV. He is also a writer, lecturer, jury member, etc. He was a 2015 overseas trainee for curators from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and a part-time lecturer at Waseda University and Tokyo Polytechnic University.


Photo: Ittetsu Matsuoka

Hiroki Yamamoto, born in Chiba in 1986, is a cultural studies scholar and Associate Professor at Jissen Women’s University in Japan. Yamamoto graduated in Social Science at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, in 2010, and completed his MA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts (UAL), London, in 2013. In 2018, he received a PhD from the University of the Arts London. After working at the Asia Culture Center in Gwangju, South Korea, as a research fellow, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University as a postdoctoral fellow, and Tokyo University of the Arts as an Assistant Professor, he was a Lecturer at Kanazawa College of Art until 2023. His single-authored publications are The History of Contemporary Art: Euro-America, Japan, and Transnational (Chuokoron-Shinsha, 2019) and Art of the Post-Anthropocene (Bijutsu Shuppan-Sha, 2022). He co-edited De-Imperializing Japanese Art History: Art and Legacies of Empire in Modern and Contemporary Japan (co-edited with Nodoka Odawara, Getsuyo-Sha, 2023).

Nobutaka Yamaoka made his feature-length directorial debut with “Pickled Punk” in 1993. He has continued working in an experimental style ever since, and his films have screened at numerous festivals including the Berlin Film Festival. He is also involved in the field of science, exploring topics such as the effects of vision on the psyche and the development of various devices. A retrospective of his features was presented at the 2013 Independent Filmmakers Showcase in Los Angeles. His first documentary, “Children who won’t die, Arakawa,” premiered in 2010. “Hooked on the Jomon” and new release “Sentimental” both won Lumiere Japan Excellence Awards. Yamaoka’s latest work is the two-part “Arts for no future!”

Born in 1983, he is a critic and dramaturg. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the theater review magazine Paperback and regularly reviews performing arts for the web magazine artscape. From 2019, he has presented stage works as y/n with director/actor Kiyoshi Hashimoto. He co-directed all of y/n’s works with Kiyoshi.

Nose Yoko was born in Okayama Prefecture and currently works primarily in Aichi Prefecture. She is a curator at Toyota Municipal Museum of Art since 1997. Exhibitions she has curated to date include Feature Exhibition: Kodai Nakahara (2001); Yutaka Sone: Double River Island(2002); Florescendo: Brasil-Japão O seu lugar (2008); Twist and Shout: Contemporary Art from Japan (Bangkok Art and Culture Center, 2009. Organized by the Japan Foundation), Junya Ishigami: Another Scale of Architecture (2010); Antigravity (2013); Hiroshi Sugito: Particles and Release (2016);  Building Romance (2018); Aichi Triennale 2019(Nagoya, Toyota); and Ho Tzu Nyen Night March of Hundred Monsters (2021-2022).