Building an Art Eco-system for the Next Generation

Speakers: Aaron Cesar, Greg Dvorak and Nawa Kohei

With its art museums, art centers and art universities, Kyoto is fertile soil for contemporary art. Kyoto-based sculptor Nawa Kohei will talk with educator and ACK 2023 public program curator Greg Dvorak and Delfina Foundation Director Aaron Cezar about carrying on the culture of this region to the future, and explore ways of developing the next generation in line with the times through Japanese and international perspectives.

Speakers:
Aaron Cezar (Founding Director, Delfina Foundation)
Greg Dvorak (Professor, International Cultural Studies at Waseda University)
Nawa Kohei (Sculptor/Director of Sandwich Inc./Professor, Kyoto University of the Arts)

Speaker’s Profiles
　

Aaron Cesar

Aaron Cezar is the founding Director of Delfina Foundation, where he curates and develops its interrelated programme of residencies, exhibitions and public events.
Under his tenure, Delfina Foundation has hosted nearly 400 artists, curators and collectors in residence, across dynamic programmes from Politics of Food to Collecting as Practice. Cezar has also curated external exhibitions and performances at Hayward Gallery Project Space, SongEun Artspace, and as part of the official public programme of the 58th Venice Art Biennale. Independently and through Delfina Foundation, he sits on numerous boards, committees, and advisory groups.

Greg Dvorak

Dr. Greg Dvorak is Professor of International Cultural Studies (History and Cultural Studies, Art Studies, Gender Studies of Pacific and Asia) at Waseda University in Tokyo.
In addition to his 2018 book on postcolonial Pacific history, Coral and Concrete, he lectures regularly on art and resistance in Oceania and has published numerous scholarly essays. Having served in 2022 as co-curator for “Air Canoe: Art from Northern Oceania,” in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Art (APT) in Brisbane, he has also advised other exhibitions such as the inaugural Honolulu Biennial in 2017. Project35 (project sango), the grassroots network he founded, aims to raise awareness about the Pacific Islands region in Japan through art and scholarly exchange.

Nawa Kohei

Born in 1975, and based in Kyoto, Japan, Kohei Nawa received a Ph.D. in Fine Art/Sculpture from Kyoto City University of Arts in 2003 and established Sandwich in 2009. He is now a professor at the Kyoto University of the Arts.
Nawa has also worked on architectural projects, including the art pavilion Kohtei. Since 2015,VESSEL, Mist, Planet [wanderer], the performance trilogy produced in conjunction with Belgo-French choreographer and dancer Damian Jalet. In 2018, his sculpture Throne was exhibited under the Pyramid at the Musée du Louvre in Paris, France. In 2023, Ether (Equality), a 25 meters-tall sculpture was installed permanently on Seguin Island on France’s Seine River.

Web:
Nawa Kohei
Sandwich

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Talk’s archive
https://youtu.be/Oro-150a-pg