Artist-in-Residence Program
Artist-in-residence program provides opportunities for artists in the field of contemporary art to cultivate their artistic creativity and vision since 1994. Located around an hour from Tokyo, a residency at ARCUS Studio allows participants in the program to come into contact with the contemporary art scene in Japan as well as devote themselves to their creative endeavors in a calm environment while interacting with the local community. Through the support the program offers from its dedicated team of coordinators and regular tutorials with a curator, artists are able to search for and explore approaches in their practices and undertake new challenges in their artistic expression.
The program particularly emphasizes research-based practices and presents the initial results of these processes at open studios. It welcomes ideas for artworks and projects that develop out of encounters with people, the land, and culture, and aspire to form critical discourses that are open and international.
- Duration
- Approximately 90 days
- Program Provisions
- A private studio, accommodation, transportation, production fee, living expense, and staff support. (567,000 JPY is provided as a living expense and production fee in 2024. The allowance is subject to change.)
- Open Call
- January through March (TBD)
- More Info
- Past Residents
2025 Resident Artist
ARCUS Project’s Artist-in-Residence Program received applications from 453 international applicants (from 77 countries and regions) and 19 applicants from Japan. Following a careful and thorough selection process, Avani Tandon Vieira, Ibrahim Kurt, and Sato Koichi have been selected as the 2025 artists-in-residence. The artists will participate in a 90-day residency at the ARCUS Studio in Moriya, Ibaraki, from August 29 to November 26, 2025. As the judges for this year’s applications, Osaka Koichiro, curator, and Kamiya Yukie, Chief Curator at The National Art Center, Tokyo who made the selection through a process of discussion with the ARCUS Project Administration Committee.
Overview of the 2025 Selection
The number of applications to the 2025 Artist-in-Residence Program was around 80% of the number of 2024, the year following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 453 applications from artists living overseas and 19 from within Japan. Of these, two artists based overseas and one artist residing in Japan were selected. Characteristic of this year was the higher-than-usual number of artists engaging in sound art and physical-based expression such as dance. Further, there were also numerous proposals that practically combined creation and education, including plans to develop their own artistic methodology in collaboration with local citizens in Moriya. Each residency proposal which remained in the final selection stage was highly compelling. However, through extensive discussion with two external jurors, we selected from outside Japan one artist engaged in art exploring the everchanging relationship between mobility and the homeland, and one artist whose proposal is to redefine social space through experimentally rewriting existing spatial perceptions. From within Japan, the artist chosen seeks to interpret the geopolitics of Ibaraki from the perspective of scientism. The three artists will undertake a residency for 90 days from late August until late November, 2025.
Ozawa Keisuke (Executive Director)
2025 Resident Artist
Avani Tandon Vieira
Photo by Riya Behl
Born and based in India. Curator, writer, and archivist Avani Tandon Vieira uses her practice to query the relationship between space and form. With a focus on Asian contexts and a transnational frame, her approach spans interdisciplinary investigations, collaborative art-making, and dialogue-based research. As part of her practice, she runs the open-access archival project The Museum of Ephemera – a space of resistance – as well as the digital platform for young creatives from India and Pakistan, The Pind Collective. She has also participated in projects such as RAW Académie, Cameroon and the Gwangju Biennale, creating works that explore experimental rebuilding of maps that dismantle existing cartographies, and film on the theme of trauma and place memory. Other works include participation in the MMCA International Researcher Residency Program (Seoul, 2024) and writings in “Refractions: A Journal of Postcolonial Cultural Criticism” and “ASAP art.”
The City is not a Line
Seminar, workshop, installation, 2024
Fantastic Cities: Manifestos, City Making, and Imaginations of the Future
Screening, seminar, workshop, 2024
The Museum of Ephemera
Archival Objects, 2020 to present
Process
Research materials
Workshop for 14 Views of Moriya City: A Students’ Sugoroku
Workshop for A Map of Lost Places
14 Views of Moriya City: A Students’ Sugoroku
Open Studio
Like a fruit held in the hand
Artist Statement
Like a fruit held in the hand
Like a fruit held in the hand is a critical and creative engagement with Japanese cartographic traditions. The project takes its name from a world map produced by the buddhist monk Hotan in 1709. Titled “A Map of the Myriad Countries of Jambudvipa Like a Fruit Held in the Hand” Hotan’s work represented a distinctive, cosmologically grounded approach to cartography. The phrase “fruit held in the hand” refers to something that is plain to see and comprehend, emphasising the power of Buddhist insight. It suggests that the clearest way to see the land may be through perspectives that are often disregarded today: spiritual, personal, located.
Taking a cue from this approach to cartography, my project embraces a narrative mode of map-making, using Edo period maps, both Buddhist and secular, as entry points to creating more democratic representations of the land. Building on the tradition of mura-ezu or pictorial village maps produced by local people in early modern Japan, it places the work of cartography in the hands of Moriya’s residents. Over the course of my residency, this has been realised through three participatory interventions: the public installation Where is the Heart of the City?, and two workshops, titled A Map of Lost Places and 14 Views of Moriya City: A Students’ Sugoroku.
Like a fruit held in the hand is both a dialogue and a reflection. Centering vernacular knowledge, it embraces a view of cartography that is strengthened by proximity and immersio
Reason for Selection
Critically examining existing maps, this project interprets space through emotions and affect of the individual, thereby creating new cartographies that change our understanding of social spaces. This involves liberation of the selection of mapped spaces, the inclusion and exclusion of certain categories, and the relationship with the intended audience from the powers. Rather, the project instead turns mapping into a creative form, reinterpreted from the perspectives and experiences of Indigenous peoples and other ordinary citizens. To do so, the artist will first conduct interviews with experts on various types and methodologies of map-making. She will then through workshops explore how residents near the ARCUS Studio perceive the space of Moriya and adjacent municipalities, and how these perceptions can be developed into maps. These maps are not for the purpose of exerting control over citizens, but rather, are woven together by each individual citizen – including for example their memories of disasters, or their experience of the land. This project was selected in recognition of its effort to reference cartography from diverse cultures and times, and democratize and liberate the recognition of space through the act of map-making.
Comment for Open Studio
As a researcher, Tandon Vieira engaged in a project of democratic map making together with local residents of Moriya. In general, maps are a compilation and processing of information of different natures and qualities, taking a certain part of the earth at a particular time and making it both abstract and a diagram. The intentions of those involved are inherently embedded within – those who commissioned the map, the surveyors, cartographers and designers. Maps were originally created for military or research purposes, to use in the invasion and understanding of unfamiliar lands. It is well known that during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign, he brought with him surveyors and cartographers to map the Nile Delta. The maps we use today, although created by those who held power, can in this sense be seen as versions modified for civilian use.
Tandon Vieira seeks to dismantle such maps and the power relations involved in their creation, returning the act of map creating to the hands of ordinary citizens. This allows a new freedom for people to interpret social spaces and the land. She asked of people living in or passing through Moriya: “Where is the heart of the Moriya?” “What places in Moriya are important to you?” “What places in Moriya have been lost?” The more people answer, the more complex and richly layered the image of Moriya becomes; this is not something that can be reduced to a single logic or rationale. The resulting psychological map of Moriya reveals, for example, invaluable events people experienced during lifetime milestones, scenes of the landscape which other people do not notice, or memories of the town as it was before the Tsukuba Express train line opened. Moriya residents who visited the Open Studios would likely select different places again, while those coming to Moriya for the first time may select the ARCUS Studio itself. This is a subtle social experiment in questioning the authority of maps provided, and instead reading the place anew through one’s own understanding.
2025 Resident Artist
Ibrahim Kurt
Kurt was born and raised in a Kurdish home in the mountainous region of Eastern Turkey, and is currently based in the Netherlands. Through video work, installation and performance, in his recent projects Kurt – himself an immigrant – portrays the multi-layered sense of belonging through the process of finding a “home,” inviting dialogue about diaspora and the experience of living separated from one’s birthplace. The methodology of linking both personal and the collective Kurdish experience is also evident in his film works. In the collaborative work Our house is only half finished, Kurt’s fragile and shifting identity is likened to the houses common in his hometown, repeatedly rebuilt and yet abandoned before completion. Past exhibitions and activities include Ijssel biennale 2025 (Deventer, The Netherlands, 2025) and Our house is only half finished（Netherlands Kurdish Institute, Amsterdam, 2024）.
Our house is only half finished
Collaboration with Lucie Fortuin
Video, 2024
Our house is only half finished
Collaboration with Lucie Fortuin
Video, 2024
a house
Installation, 2023 to present
Process
A collaborative project with women living in Moriya
Combining Kurdish traditional patterns and landscapes in Ibaraki
A collaborative project with women living in Moriya
Open Studio
Ev şîwen û şahî tew’eman in / These sorrows and festivities are twins
Artist Statement
Ev şîwen û şahî tew’eman in / These sorrows and festivities are twins
My work is rooted in fragmented diasporic memories. Within my projects are memories of my home village, Qele, and the traditions woven into its people, houses, and soil. When I came to ARCUS, I had the intention of inviting the memories of Moriya to join my memories of Qele.
In doing this, I spent a lot of my time outside the studio, visiting the Kurdish communities of Warabi and Kawaguchi, the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, as well as Moriya locals who work with textiles. These visits led to conversations and explorations around traditional materials, textiles, and patterns, which supplemented my research on Kurdish carpet patterns with local knowledge.
These learning experiences have resulted in a project in which I started working with women living in Moriya who have generously shared their time and experience, as well as materials from their personal and family histories. Together, we are working on a piece inspired by my childhood pillows, whose covers were adorned with embroidered patterns. The textiles we are using come with their own stories and become a part of mine, creating a fluid, collective memory.
In continuing my practice of working with earth, I am currently sculpting a carpet made from woven jute and tiles made from local earth. The tiles are carved with patterns and symbols representative of my own memory as well as collective memory from Qele and Moriya.
Reason for Selection
Kurt continues his journey in search of Kurdish identity. During his ARCUS Project residency, he will explore Kurdish patterns in Japan, and document this journey through film, photography and words. Seeking out familiar motifs such as those in Kurdish household tiles, rugs and carpets in an unfamiliar land will likely lead him to cities such as Kawaguchi and Warabi, where many Kurdish immigrants reside, as well as museums and other institutions where he can deepen his research into patterns. Facing one’s homeland while traveling means confronting the distance from it in both space and time. Yet, distance does not necessarily mean fading away. Rather, one can imagine occurrences which suddenly and powerfully evoke memories of one’s hometown. Kurt was selected with high expectation as to how he will explore and express ever-changing identity through the places he travels to and relations with people he meets.
Comment for Open Studio
Kurt was born and raised in a Kurdish community in Ağrı Province, Türkiye, and moved to the Netherlands with his family at the age of 15. He is now based in The Hague where he continues his artistic practice.
At ARCUS, he sought out traditional Kurdish patterns, creating both sculptural and video works that imagine the overlapping points of connection between Kurdish and Japanese cultures. In the context of a society where attitudes towards immigrants are subtly shifting, and considering the limited 90-day residence period, ARCUS staff initially researched the Kurdish community in Japan, identifying people Kurt should meet. However, such concerns proved unnecessary. While we were still going over our considerations, Kurt had already gone out on his own into the local areas, building relationships by visiting carpet stores or restaurants run by members of the Kurdish community. In parallel, he collected fabrics holding particular memories from residents of Moriya and embroidered these, using the opportunity to engage in dialogue about textiles, such as the pillow covers of his childhood. He additionally created a carpet featuring Kurdish patterns using jute and soil of Moriya and his homeland. The jute, fabric and earth are all gifts from places where the artist has lived either in the past or present.
Art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud used the word “radicant” to describe a kind of artist that has appeared since the beginning of the 21st century. Such artists are not trees which grow reaching up high from one fixed root, but rather, ivy that spreads lateral roots, climbing over the ground and over walls. Though unstable, the roots of such plants stretch out wherever they go, engaging in communication with people and forging their own path. Watching Kurt, one cannot help but feel the strength of his work and of the subtly shifting, resilient currents of Kurdish identity.
2025 Resident Artist
Sato Koichi
Based in Tokyo, Sato explores society through the natural environment and living organisms, as well as production and consumption, and engages in creative work combining not only video but also scent and sound. The departure point of his work is a questioning of the environment or society, and he conducts on-site research in places where these issues manifest concretely. A recent work deals with PFAS contamination of tap water in western Tokyo, and how this contaminated water enters the body as a foreign object, unconsciously turning one’s own body into the “other.” From enquiry to research and artistic creation, Sato creates a holistic viewing experience that examines the relationship between the environment and living organisms from various angles. Past exhibitions and activities include Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visons 2023: Technology? (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, 2023), Thailand Biennale Korat 2021 (Korat, Thailand, 2021), and Third Landscape (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, 2019).
武蔵野の流水
Video, 2025 to present
Sink into Silence
Installation, performance, 2019
Mutant Vibrations
Installation, 2022
Process
Tokai No.2 Power Station
Road leading to Muramatsu Coast along the grounds of the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (Tokai Village)
Belle II Detector at KEK (High Energy Accelerator Research Organization)
Radiation observed in the cloud chamber at the Nuclear Science Museum (Tokai Village)
Open Studio
Artist Statement
As I walked through various places in Ibaraki Prefecture, two things were on my mind.
One was the environment of the ponds, marshes and wetlands here and there throughout the plains. Much of the nature in these areas has been subject to development, and not much remains in a primeval state. However, as a place where human activity and nature collide, I felt it an intriguing environment to observe.
The second is the regions that have become centers of science and technology, as a result of such an environment. In Tokai Village, where the “atomic flame” was first lit in 1957, Japan’s first commercial nuclear power plant and nuclear fuel facilities were concentrated from an early stage. Still today, the area is a major hub for nuclear energy research. Likewise, Tsukuba Science City, which was planned in the 1960s in the model of a Soviet science city, seems to be conceived as a kind of response to the nuclear foundations of Tokai Village. Many such areas throughout Ibaraki have been transformed into science centers under national policy.
I visited these areas in person and conducted research on the origins, transformations and current work of the research facilities, while also engaging in field work in the surrounding environments. Through this research process I came to know phenomena that exist beyond the human senses such as visualized ionizing radiation, and explored ways to consider the environment from the perspective of the non-human.
Reason for Selection
Sato will conduct research and create works in relation to two places born through national policy and where knowledge and expertise in the fields of science and technology are concentrated – Tokai Village and Tsukuba City. These two sites were realized in pursuit of human ideals through science, but in reality, evoke not only a bright future but also a sense of impending crisis and ruin. Noting this duality, the artist will acquire architectural drawings of town blocks and facilities that make scientific and Utopian ideas a reality, in an attempt to understand the physical space in a three-dimensional way. He will also visit these sites to collect plant materials and turf from research facilities and the surrounding natural environment, extracting scents from them. In an expansion on the motivations and methodologies of his previous works, Sato will examine the relationship between society and humans as shaped by science and technology, considering these from the lens of national constructs, the architects involved, and the natural environment. He was selected in recognition of his effort to consider the “human” as it appears in modern society, and reexamine this from non-human perspectives and temporalities.
Comment for Open Studio
Sato has previously created works including research into PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals”) detected in groundwater in western Tokyo. Through photographing water sources on site, collecting water samples, and extracting scents from vegetation, he seeks to fill the gap between the field research site and the exhibition space, conveying to audiences that they are indeed directly involved.
Sato’s practice is based on an interest in social spaces which exceed the scale of the human body and phenomena that occur there, as well as the forces are at work between them. At ARCUS, he researched the nuclear power plant and related facilities in Tokai Village, as well as Tsukuba Science City, as places and facilities built as part of national state policy in pursuit of ideal visions of future, and explored the geographical conditions and humans and non-human beings living in these spaces. He visited the Nuclear Science Research Institute and Ibaraki Museum of Nuclear Science in Tokai Village, as well as the “Joyo” fast test reactor in Oarai Town, and walked through neighboring areas. In the process of this research, Sato came to notice that many nuclear power related facilities are located close to marshes, and conducted field recordings to explore this connection. He also turned his attention to neutrons, which make the invisible visible, and learned about neutron radiography as a way to visualize the moisture absorption in plants.
Photographs of nuclear facilities and other related documents are displayed at his studio. His video work captures radiation as it passes through a cloud chamber. Materials relating to the Tsukuba Center Building, designed by Isozaki Arata in the city of Tsukuba and completed in 1983, are also on view. Isozaki notably made drawings of the building as an abandoned ruin at the time of its completion. Sato’s residency project, in which themes of radiation and ruin seem to be somehow linked, does not end here: rather, he will continue to develop it further over the coming several years.