Keiichi Miyagawa (Director of AIK:Art Institute Kitakyushu and GALLERY SOAP / Artist)
Miyagawa has been running an artist-run-space called GALLERY SOAP since 1997 in Kitakyushu, Japan and has organized many curatorial projects and music events including The Kitakyushu Biennial, co-curated with Takuji Kogo, he is also running an online-based candy factory project internationally, and Yoshitaka Mouri, sociologist, an associate professor of Tokyo University of Arts, and has been organizing another project called “HOTEL ASIA” started in Kitkayushu 2011. And he also have curated solo show of following artists: Dan Graham (USA), Peter Halley (USA), Philip Horst (Germany), Federico Baronello (Italy), Jesper Alvaer (Norway), candy factory (Japan), Hiroshi Fuji (Japan) and so forth.
Keiichi Miyagawa is also a member of an artist collective named SECOND PLANET. His works have been presented at Aichi Triennale 2016, Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong 2014, The Kitakyusuh Biennial 2013, The Taegu Photo Biennial 2012, ZK/U Berlin 2012, Hotel Asia Project at Organhaus Chongqing 2012, Maebashi Media Festival 2012, International Curators Forum YOKOHAMA 2011.
Curator:
Ni Kun (Curator of Organhaus, China / Art writer)
Born and raised in Hunan and living in Chongqing, Ni Kun is a curator and the co-founder of the non-profit organization Organhaus Art Space. The art interaction in the background of rapid urbanization in China and globalization is his concern, which he uses as tools to reflect the circumstance by developing series of experimental art practices refer to "City and Reconstruction".
Recently his curating works include: Forum: "Under-Construction/Reconstruction as the “Imagination” of Social Practice: Projects on Social Art Practice by Artists in Asia" (The Rockbund Museum; Curator); 6-week thematic studies in Fukuoka Art Museum as a researcher; Daily Farm: Video Art Exhibition on the New Silk Road 2014 (Sinkiang Contemporary Art Museum; September 2014, Curator); "Play City: Sm-art C&V" Forum (April 2015)
Gen Sasaki (Curator of GALLERY SOAP / Artist) Born in 1980, Gen is an artist based in Kitakyushu, Japan, and a member of GALLERY SOAP since 2004 (2004 - 2015: assistant director, 2016 -: curator). As an artist, he works with various media, images, movies, sound and text spread in the internet and real world. Taking such information as source of his work and re-mixing them, he attempts to shift contexts slightly and give different aspects. Ongoing projects include "HOTEL ASIA PROJECT", a continuing project in collaboration with an artist Keiichi Miyagawa since 2011 (http://hotelasia.cc/). "E87", web and free magazine project in collaboration with an artist Hisao Sotoda since 2013 (http://e-87.cc/).
