Applications for this course are now closed. Thank you very much for the many applications. We will inform all applicants of the selection results by email at a later date.
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NEW SCHOOL is a series of courses offered at Art Center NEW.
By inviting experts from a wide range of fields as instructors, we create a space and opportunities where each person who gathers under timely, essential themes can discover a new version of themselves.
This new place of learning is waiting for your participation.
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When I was asked to teach this course for artists, I was requested to address the theme of “post-colonialism.” While I agree that it is an important topic, I felt that teaching it merely as knowledge might actually obscure the individual realities that each person experiences. I also wanted to make the course accessible for people who make things and express themselves in various ways.
**What we will deal with here, then, is what comes before such large themes.
It is about slowly finding our way toward expression—starting from subtle moments in daily life or flashes of ideas.
It is about drawing social questions out of the small things around us.
It is about thinking together, beyond identity and the boundaries between self and others.
It is about not ignoring the hesitations that arise in making or researching, but letting them guide our actions.
It is about keeping a healthy distance from industry trends and institutional frameworks, continuing one’s own practice, and at times even shaking those structures.
It is about understanding art history without confining it to linear timelines or national borders.
I want this course to support you whenever you feel uncertain about expressing yourself in this era, or when your practice feels stuck—so that you can somehow keep moving forward.
Riku Iioka (Curator, Curatorial Department, Yokohama Museum of Art)
Dates：2025.10〜2026.1 6 lectures
Lecture, Curation：Riku Iioka
Guest：Natsuki Kuroda、Maya Erin Masuda、Hibino Miyon、Arata Hasegawa
Venue：Art Center NEW（Shin-Takashima Station 1-2-1 Minatomirai, Nishi-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa 220-0012）
Fee：¥20,000（Student：¥15,000）
Maximum Number：15 people
※ If the number of applicants exceeds the capacity, a selection may be made based on the submitted application materials.
How to apply: Please fill in the required information in the application form at the bottom of this page, attach the necessary documents, and submit your application.
Application deadline: Tuesday, September 30, 2025, 23:59
10/31（Fri）20:00-22:00
Introduction
11月14 日（金）20:00-22:00
Friends Photo ／Delivering the name of bird （Guest：Natsuki Kuroda）
11月28 日（金）20:00-22:00
Assignment：Self-Making ・Explore everyday life
12月5日（金）20:00-22:00
Ecologies of Closeness：痛みが他者でなくなるとき（Guest：Maya Erin Masuda）
12月20日（土）18:00-20:00
Remapping the boundaries of art history（Guest：Hibino Miyon、Arata Hasegawa）
2026年1月9日（金）20:00-22:00
Final Assignment ：Lay out each of the sketchbooks
Applications are now closed.
Please fill in the required information in the application form below, attach the necessary documents, and submit your application.
(Application deadline: September 30, 23:59)
Curator and Curatorial Staff at Yokohama Museum of Art. After working at the Mori Art Museum, he assumed his current position in 2024. At the Mori Art Museum, he was involved in exhibitions and research projects such as Listening to the Sound of the Earth Turning: Well-being After the Pandemic (2022). He began curatorial work and collaborations with artists while studying Oil Painting at the Tokyo University of the Arts, and during his graduate studies at Yokohama National University’s Graduate School of Urban Innovation, he organized projects including The New Rube Goldberg Machine (KAYOKOYUKI, Komagome Warehouse, 2016). His major writings include “Care as Critique” (Bijutsu Techo, February 2022), and he co-edited the translation anthology Practices Without Publics: Towards Inter-Regional Curatorial Private Studies (0-eA, online, 2025). He also participated as a co-thinker of gudeul in the Changwon Sculpture Biennale 2024 silent apple (Korea).
She works on video and photographic projects that incorporate research, fieldwork, and workshops. Her practice is wide-ranging, including involvement in anniversary projects for public zoos and hosting roundtable discussions exploring the intersections of parenting and artistic practice. Recent solo exhibitions include Tsukurikake Lab 13: A Perfect Day for Birdwatching (Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba, 2023) and αM Project 2020–2021 Aggregation of Promises Vol. 3 Natsuki Kuroda: The Beginning of Photography (Gallery αM, Tokyo, 2021). Recent notable group exhibitions include Choreography of the Everyday (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 2025), as well as projects she also curated, such as The Eyes of the Zoo (Kanazawa Zoo, Yokohama, Kanagawa, 2019) and Tokyo Biennale: Tokyo’s Prescription (Étoile Kaito, Tokyo, 2019).
Artist and researcher, based in Berlin, Tokyo, and London. Currently conducting research on Queer Ecology at the University of the Arts Berlin, and from September will join the Materiality of Care lab at Eindhoven University of Technology as a research fellow. Recent solo exhibitions include Ecologies of Closeness: When Pain Ceases to Be Other (Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, 2025) and Sleep, Lick, Leak, Deep… (Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, UK, 2024). Notable recent group exhibitions include More Strange Things (Silent Green, Germany, 2024), Bodies / Multiplicitous: Living with the Unruly (Kuma Foundation Gallery, Tokyo, 2023), and Ground Zero (Kyoto Art Center, 2023).
Curatorial staff at Yokohama Museum of Art. After working at the National Art Center, Tokyo, he has held his current position since 2016. He completed a master’s degree in Aesthetics and Art History at Keio University Graduate School, writing his thesis on Japanese painters who participated in the Joseon Art Exhibition held on the Korean Peninsula under Japanese colonial rule. In 2010–2011, he was an exchange student at the Graduate School of Humanities, Seoul National University, majoring in Archaeology and Art History. At the National Art Center, Tokyo, he was responsible for exhibitions including Artist File 2015: The Room Next Door – Japanese and Korean Artists (2015). He is currently preparing Japan-Korea Contemporary Art Exhibition (tentative title), co-organized with the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, scheduled to open at Yokohama Museum of Art in December 2025.
Independent curator. Recent projects include solo exhibitions such as Sitting in the Time by Kaede Yamato (2025) and One-Day Outing Ticket by Satoshi Nishizawa (2025, organized in collaboration with Soudansho), Nara Machiya Art Festival Narāto 2023, Uda Matsuyama Area SEASON 2 (2023), and αM Project 2020–2021: Aggregation of Promises (2020–21). Co-translator of Julia Bryan-Wilson’s Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Artist’s Social Labor (translated by Saya Takahashi, Risa Matsumoto, Rie Takesawa, and Shin Hasegawa, Film Art, 2024). Writes an occasional series re-examining postwar Japanese art, titled Art in the Era Called Izanagi (Tokyo Art Beat, 2022–24), with a loosely connected sister series also underway. Together with Chang-sang Kwon (Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo), she organized the Lecture Series on Korean Contemporary Art History at Ko-Honya bookstore (2023–24).
For inquiries regarding this course, please contact us via the CONTACT of Art Center NEW.
