About
Artistic Director
Hoor Al Qasimi
[President and Director of the Sharjah Art Foundation]SEBASTIAN BÖTTCHER
Hoor Al Qasimi, President and Director of Sharjah Art Foundation, is a curator who established the Foundation in 2009 as a catalyst and advocate for the arts, not only in Sharjah, UAE but also in the region and around the world. With a passion for supporting experimentation and innovation, she has continuously expanded the scope of the Foundation to include major international touring exhibitions; artist and curator residencies in visual art, film, and music; commissions and production grants for emerging artists; publications and publication grants; performance and film festivals; architectural research and restoration; and a wide range of educational programming for all age groups.
She co-curated Sharjah Biennial 6 (2003) and has remained Biennial Director since and was curator of Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023). She was also elected as President of the International Biennial Association in 2017, the President of The Africa Institute, and President and Director of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial. Previously, she was a board member for MoMA PS1, New York, and the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, etc.
Head of Curatorial
Iida Shihoko
[Independent Curator]ToLoLo studio
Iida Shihoko was born in Tokyo and is based in Nagoya, Japan. She worked as Curator at the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery for 11 years, starting as Assistant Curator in 1998 when it was preparing for opening. From 2009 to 2011, Iida was a Visiting Curator of ACAPA, a research institute within the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, Australia. She stayed in Seoul as a 2011 International Fellowship Researcher, hosted by National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea. Drawing from her interest in co-curation, contemporary art in Asia, and the relationship between society and art institutions, Iida has co-curated exhibitions in Seoul, multiple cities in Australia, New Delhi, Jakarta, and Milan. Additionally, she worked on the 15th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh 2012, Aichi Triennale 2013, and Sapporo International Art Festival 2014 as Curator, also served as Chief Curator (Head of Curatorial Team) of Aichi Triennale 2019 and 2022. From 2014 to 2018, she was Associate Professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts. Iida is a member of CIMAM, IBA, and AICA.
Curator (Contemporary Art)
Irizawa Masaaki
[Curator, Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum]Born in Osaka, Japan. Irizawa Masaaki completed an MFA at Kyoto City University of Arts. After a curatorial internship at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, from 2015 to 2017 he served as a curator at the Asahi Group (formerly Asahi Breweries) Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art. He has held his current position since 2018. He specializes in the history of modern and contemporary Japanese ceramics. He plans and curates exhibitions that handle ceramics not only as a form of artistic expression, but also from an industrial perspective. In recent years he has been responsible for mounting exhibitions including The Ceramic Sculpture of Shindo Tsuji (2020), THE NOSTALGIC JAPAN 1950s-70s: the Modern Tableware and the Design Drawings (2022), Modern Thoughts on Pottery: Inside⇄Outside (2022). He also participated in Dividing Line-Connecting Line (2013, in collaboration with Kawai Yuki), a curatorial grant project of the Nishieda Foundation.
Curator (Performing Arts)
Nakamura Akane
[Performing Arts Producer]Takuya Matsumi
Born in Tokyo, Japan. Nakamura Akane has been involved in the performing arts since her time as a student at Nihon University College of Art. She served as program director at ST Spot Yokohama from 2004 to 2008. In 2006 she was involved in the founding of precog Co., Ltd. in 2006, and she has been its representative director (CEO) since 2008. As a grantee of the Asian Cultural Council (ACC), she lived in Bangkok and New York from 2016 to 2018. Along with producing contemporary theatrical and dance works for artists and companies inside and outside of Japan, Nakamura works on site-specific festivals and interdisciplinary training programs, and in a project that operates a platform for distributing video content in barrier-free and multilingual formats. She has served as producer for overseas tours and co-productions spanning seventy cities in thirty countries. From 2012 to 2014 she served as performing arts program director for Kunisaki Art Project and Kunisaki Art Festival (sponsored by Kunisaki Art Festival Executive Committee); in 2019 she served as associate director and deputy secretary general of the True Colors Festival celebration of diversity in the arts (sponsored by The Nippon Foundation); and in 2020 she served as executive producer for “THEATRE for ALL,” an online theater that focuses on accessibility. She was awarded the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s FY2021 Encouragement Prize for New Artists in development of the arts.
Curator (Learning)
Tsuji Takuma
[Architect]goitami
Born in Shizuoka, Japan. After graduating from the Yokohama Graduate School of Architecture (Y-GSA), Tsuji teamed up with Hashimoto Takeshi and Yada Toru to form the 403architecture [dajiba] architectural collective in 2011. As 403, the collective won the 30th Yoshioka Award for The Ceiling of Tomitsuka in 2014; participated in the Japan Pavilion exhibition that won a special mention at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia in 2016; and it has shown its work at numerous exhibitions inside and outside of Japan, including Aichi Triennale 2016. Since establishing tsujitakuma and projects LLC as his own office in 2017, in parallel with 403, Tsuji has focused on the theme of intermittent, yet fluid, transitions in buildings and spaces. In 2019 he served as a lecturer for the Aichi Triennale’s art university collaboration project and from 2020 to the present he served as a specially appointed lecturer on Community Area Design at Nagoya Zokei University.
Curatorial Adviser (Contemporary Art)
Ishikura Toshiaki
[Anthropologist/Associate Professor, Department of Arts & Roots, Akita University of Art]Ishikura has conducted field research in places including Sikkim, Darjeeling, Nepal, and northeastern Japan, researched comparative mythology of the Pacific Rim and multispecies artistic anthropology. He collaborates with artists and cooperates in the planning and curation of exhibitions. Before assuming his current position, he served as an assistant at the Institute for Anthropology of Art and Design, Tama Art University and then as a researcher at the Institute pour la Science Sauvage, Meiji University. In 2019, he participated in the Cosmo-Eggs exhibition at the Japanese Pavilion for the 58th Venice Biennale. He has co-authored books including Lexicon: Contemporary Anthropology and More Than Human: Multispecies Anthropology and Environmental Humanities (both in Japanese, Ibunsha).
Cho Sunhye
[Curator, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum]Born in Tokyo, Japan. Based in Fukuoka City. After working as an exhibition assistant and coordinator in Japan and elsewhere in East Asia, Cho was appointed assistant curator for Aichi Triennale 2016. She has served as a curator at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Collection and Exhibition Section, Curatorial Division) since 2016, specializing in Asian contemporary art. In recent years she has been conducting research on art history and visual art by pan-Asian immigrants. At FAAM, she has curated exhibitions including Waters in Asian Art (2023), Message—50 Years of Women Artists in Asia (2020), Fukuoka Asian Art Museum 20th Anniversary Exhibition: Journey through Asian Art (2019), and LGBTQ and Social Diversity in Asian Art (2019).