Kyoko Iwaki is a JSPS Post-Doctoral researcher affiliated with Waseda University. Currently, she is also a part-time lecturer at Chuo University. Kyoko obtained a PhD in Theatre from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2017. After her completion of PhD, she became a Visiting Scholar at The Segal Center, The City University of New York. Kyoko is a specialist in Japanese contemporary theatre, who conducts research at the intersection of sociology, performance studies, critical theory, post-colonial studies, new materialism and animal studies. For the past fifteen years, she has worked also as a theatre journalist, contributing to media outlets such as Asahi Shimbun Newspaper. In 2015, she was appointed the Chief Director of Scene/Asia project: a pan-Asian researcher’s platform consisted of partners from five Asian regions. Her publications include, Japanese Theatre Today: Theatrical Imaginations of Eight Contemporary Practitioners (Tokyo: Film Art Publishing, 2018 in Japanese).She has also contributed a chapter (chapters) to Fukushima and the Arts: Negotiating Nuclear Disaster(London, Routledge, 2016) and A History of Japanese Theatre(Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Researcher on post-war Japanese avant-garde art and curator of Fuchu Art Museum. Received MA in art from the Tokyo University of the arts. Based on researches of artworks and documents、has written a history of post-war Japanese avant-garde art through curating exhibitions and writing essays.

Exhibitions include Jiro Takamatsu; Universe of his Thought(2004), At/From Tamagawa 1964-2009(2009)、Kaku-Co; O JUN 1982-2013(2013). Writings are Drawing Seen As a Pssibility, in “Jiro TakamatsuAll Drawings”(2009), Return after 20 Years, in “Reflection: In Return to Koji Enokura”(2015), “Noe Aoki : Nagare no naka ni Hikari no Katamari”(2019). Co-edited an anthology “Reading Jiro Takamatsu”(2014).

Curator. Lives in Tokyo. Recent curated exhibitions and projects includes amongst others: Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda（statements, Tokyo, 2017）, Troedsson Villa Mountain School 2016（statements, Tokyo, 2016, Original concept by Tam Ochiai & Anne Eastman）, Futoshi Miyagi: American Boyfriend（2013～）.  In addition, he has curated and published artists’ books and zines as independent publisher includes: Yasuto Masumoto, Ryoko Aoki, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, Nobutaka Aozaki and Shimon Minamikawa.

Maki Kaneko is Associate Professor in the Kress Foundation Department of Art History at the University of Kansas, where she teaches modern and contemporary Japanese visual arts and the art of Asian Americans and Asian diaspora. She has published the single-authored book Mirroring the Japanese Empire: The Male Figure in Yoga Painting, 1930-1950 (Brill, 2015) and co-edited “Modern & Contemporary East Asian Art,” special issue, Spencer Museum of Art The Register VIII, no. 5 (2019). Her publications also include: “Contemporary Goshin’ei: The Emperor, Art, and the Anus,” in Noriko Murai, Jeff Kingston and Tina Burrett (eds.), Japan in Heisei Era (1989-2019): Multidisciplinary Perspectives (2022), “Japanese Modern Art History in North America and the Perspective of Asian American Art Studies,” in Megumi Kitahara (ed.), Taniguchi Fumie Studies (Osaka University 2018) and “War Heroes of Modern Japan: Early 1930s War Fever and the Three Brave Bombers,” in Philip K. Hu (ed.), Conflicts of Interest: Art and War in Modern Japan (St. Louis Art Museum, 2016).

(Musician/Violinist) Yuji Katsui, an electric violinist, plays with a number of music groups such as “ROVO”, ”KOMA”, “TWIN TAIL”, “DRAMATICS”, “Yuji Katsui × U-zhaan”, and continues to explore the possibilities of expression with the electric violin.

Benrido, Overseas Division Director
Taka Kawachi has extensive international experience, having graduated from the Academy of Art University of San Francisco, to then working in New York City as a book editor and curator for 15 years. Returning to Japan in 2011, and Kawachi published his first book Art no Iriguchi (Entrance to the Arts, on American Art) followed by his second publication on European Art released in 2016.  His publications illustrate his experiences of art and photography and offers readers an opportunity to engage with the history and subjects of both regions from his unique point of view. He is currenlty the Director of the Overseas Division of Kyoto’s Benrido, working to disseminate the classic and rare photographic process of Collotype.