Curator at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art
Based in Warsaw
dummy dummy Maria Brewinska is a long-time curator at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, where she has created many important exhibitions that have shaped the profile of that important institution. She is the originator of the first exhibitions in Poland to feature postwar Japanese and East Asian art, and has contributed significantly to international scholarly exchange. During the residency, Brewinska will revisit Mono-ha, the avant-garde movement that emerged in late-1960s Tokyo, from a contemporary ecological perspective. The outcomes of her research will be presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (MOCAK) in 2027–28. Her most important curatorial projects include: Gendai: Between the Body and Space – Contemporary Japanese Art (2000), Kawamata Tadash exhibition and permanent installation (2001-03) both held at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, and  a Kusama Yayoi exhibition, Between Collectivism and Individualism—Japanese Avant-garde in the 1950s and the 1960s (Zachęta Gallery, 2021), and Koji Kamoji: Don’t let the unnecessary overshadow the whole (Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2025).

Independent curator and researcher
Research Assistant, Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean
Based in London

After completing her MFA in Curating at Goldsmiths, University of London, Imaseki Yurika has been conducting transnational research and curatorial projects with a focus on Japanese contemporary art. She employs an interdisciplinary approach, grounded in decolonial and queer feminist thought as a critical framework. This approach underpinned her research as an external advisor for Chá, Chai, Tea (Horniman Museum and Gardens, London, 2023–24), and continues to inform her current research for the forthcoming exhibition Japanese Women Artists after 1945 at Mudam Luxembourg. She previously worked as Programming Officer (Exhibitions) at Japan House London (2023–24). Imaseki has also guest-lectured at universities, including Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London.

Professor of Art History, Städelschule (Frankfurt) / independent curator
Born in 1972. Based in Brussels.

During his career, Philippe Pirotte has curated numerous exhibitions across Europe, Asia, and Africa, exploring cross-cultural dialogue, critical historiography, and new models of curatorial practice through the lens of colonial histories and non-Western epistemologies.During his residency, he will conduct research for his forthcoming exhibition project Spectres of Bandung: A Political Imagination of Asia–Africa, which takes inspiration from the 1955 Bandung Conference to examine the relationship between postwar Japanese art and cultural solidarities between Asia and Africa. Among his major curatorial projects are Arus Balik: From below the wind to above the wind and back again (NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, 2019) and Seeing in the Dark (Busan Biennale, 2024). From 2019 to 2022, Pirotte served on the Documenta Commission, where he played an instrumental role in the appointment of the Indonesian collective ruangrupa as the first Asian artistic directors of documenta.

Associate Curator, Japanese Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Missouri, USA)
Born in 1980. Based in Prairie Village, Kansas, USA.

Specializing in Japanese art history and material culture, Shinoda Yayoi has curated exhibitions that explore the intersections of tradition and innovation as well as locality and internationalism. Her curatorial practice focuses on how materials and techniques shape identity and social values within cultural contexts, emphasizing dialogue between artworks, society, and history. During the residency, under the theme of “Threading Thoughts, Weaving Identity,” Shinoda will investigate how contemporary Japanese artists address ideas of gender, hybridity, and cultural belonging through fiber-based practices such as weaving, dyeing, stitching, and knotting. The project aims to reconsider the relationship between the inheritance and innovation of materials, positioning fiber art as a field of expression that connects cultural memory with creative transformation. Her curatorial projects at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art include Weaving Splendor: Treasures of Asian Textiles (2021) and Hokusai: Masterpieces from the Spencer Museum of Art, the Richardson-North Collection, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (2024), organized to complement the traveling exhibition Hokusai: Waves of Inspiration from the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, which she helped present at the museum in 2024.