Curator
curator
Chapter 2: Reflections on people and life (Osaka Cultural Center, Tempozan)
"Reshaped Reality: 50 Years of Hyperrealist Sculpture" Chief Curator
Maximilian Otto Letze
Born in 1984, since 2015 he is the director of the Institute for Cultural Exchange in Tübingen, Germany, where he focuses on organizing international exhibitions in the field of modern and contemporary art. After studying Liberal Arts and Business Administration at Emerson College in Boston, USA and Luigi Bocconi Commercial University in Mailland, Italy, he received his Master's degree in Global Studies from the University of Leipzig, London Business School and the Erasmus Mundus Consortium of Wroclaw University in 2011. He was awarded a Master's degree in Global Studies. Around the world, he has participated in “50 Years of Hyperrealist Sculpture” at the National Gallery of Australia; “Back to Paradise” at the Leopold Museum in Vienna; “La Bohème, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Masters of Montmartre.” He has organized and supervised more than 40 exhibitions.
Program
Chapter 3: The relationship between the city and art (Osaka Kita area)
"Thought-provoking music / New Storytelling" Curator
SAKUMA Hiroshi
Specially Appointed Researcher, Social Solutions Initiative, Osaka University
Director, Osaka Pavilion Promotion Committee for the 2025 World Expo, Japan
CEO, Shape New World Initiative, World Economic Forum
Born in 1996. At Osaka University, he is engaged in research on virtual beings and future society design, and is scheduled to exhibit “Virtual Beings of the Future” as director of the Osaka Pavilion at the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo. He is also the principal investigator for a joint research project between Osaka University and the Japan Science and Technology Agency on future society design, and served as team leader for a moonshot research and development project in 2021. He is currently the chairperson of the Osaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Committee for the Creation of Future Society, the chairperson of the Task Force for the Future Generation Society of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, and a member of the Science Fiction Writers Club of Japan, among others. Winner of the Japan Open Innovation Award, Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Prize in 2022, and selected for Forbes Japan 30 UNDER 30 in 2023. Project Researcher, Osaka University Social Solutions Initiative; Director, Osaka Pavilion Promotion Committee, Japan International Exposition, 2025.
Program
Chapter 4: The Possibilities of Art in a Changing City (Sanno Harmonica Nagaya)
"Cafe Atariya: Front, Back, Middle and Corner" Curator
Production Zomia
Production Zomia was formed in 2021 as a network of artists, curators, and other Asian professionals involved in the arts. Recent activities include organizing “Water Crossers (Zomi) - Contemporary Art from the Mekong Region” (2021, Semba Excel Building, Osaka). Zomia” refers to the mountainous regions of mainland Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar) and southern China and its people, defined as such by Dutch historian Willem van Schendel after the Tibetan and Myanmarese word ‘Zomi’ (highlander) (James C. Scott, A World History of the Zomiār Demigrated Nation).
Program
Chapter 5: Semba Excel Building: A city where cultures cross paths, north, south, east and west
“Re: Human ─ The New Human Condition” Curator
KISHIMOTO Mitsuhiro
Born in 1988 in Osaka. Graduated from Kyoto City University of Arts, Graduate School of Fine Arts, majoring in painting. After working as a coordinator of art projects and curator of Kyoto City University of Arts Gallery@KCUA, he assumed his current position. He views artworks as traces of behavior inseparable from “life,” and curates contemporary art based on the perspectives and experiences he has gained from both creating his own artworks and planning and managing exhibitions. Recent exhibitions include Isadora Neves Marquez, Tomoaki Ishihara's “SELFIES,” and the “Slow Culture” series.
Program
Other venues: National Museum of Ethnology
Exhibition curator, National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku in Expo Park)
NAKANO Yasuo
Born 1955 in Tokyo, Japan; completed postgraduate studies (art education) at Yokohama National University, 1981. The theme of his master's thesis was ‘Education through Art. Education through Art’ After working in the Preparatory Office of the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki City (1994), she became a curator at the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki City (1999). After working as head of the Planning and Information Office of the Kawasaki City Civic Museum (2005, 2006), he became head of the Curatorial Section of the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki City in 2007; he retired from the museum in March 2016. Organised the exhibition ‘Michiko Kon, Photographer’ at the University of Veracruz, Mexico; since April 2017 President of the Kyoto Nijo International Cultural and Artistic Exchange Association.
Major exhibitions include “OKAMOTO Taro and the Jomon” (2001), “OKAMOTO Taro the Human” (2011), 100 years after his birth, and “The Painter Behind Taro Okamoto, Myth of Tomorrow” (2015). He is strongly influenced by OKAMOTO Taro's ideas and way of life.
