Tokyo Alternatives: Introducing Another Side of Tokyo’s Art Scene

Friday 30 August 2013, 5:30-7:30pm
Sa Sa Art Projects, #26-28 E2, White Building, Sothearos Blvd.
In Khmer and English translation.

As part of a six-week Pisaot residency at Sa Sa Art Projects, Emma Ota will give a presentation offering insights into Tokyo’s art scene beyond the dominant commercial galleries and institutions. She will introduce a number of alternative and artist-run spaces as well as independent non-profit initiatives in Tokyo (such as Youkobo Art Space, and 3331 Arts Chiyoda), and discuss their contributions to the diversity of the city’s cultural engagement.

Ota will also share her ongoing project, dislocate, which brings together artists from across Asia for an examination of art, technology and locality. The project encourages a reconsideration of notions of community and public space, by highlighting their wider possibilities and embodiments, driven by collaborations between artists and local people ­– from children to senior citizens – as well as interventions into shared common spaces.

About Emma Ota

Emma Ota is a curator, art coordinator and researcher based in Tokyo, Japan. She is Director of the dislocate art project, which challenges the meaning of locality in globalised technology driven society. Ota is also engaged in long-term research on media art and artist-run spaces, particularly in Asia. She pursues art as a platform for the collision of ideas and debates surrounding the current conditions of society. She received a Master degree in Visual Imaging and Sciences from Musashino Art University, Tokyo, in 2011. During her Pisaot residency at Sa Sa Art Projects, Emma researched Cambodian art spaces and explored collaborations between children in Phnom Penh’s White Building and children in Tokyo through a series of media art workshops. www.dis-locate.net | www.eonsbetween.net | www.inter-play.com