Arts Initiative Tokyo (AIT) a not-for-profit independent collective of curators and art administrators based in Tokyo, Japan. It is especially concerned with contemporary art.
It was founded in 2001 by six curators and arts administrators: Yuko Ozawa (Director), Yoko Miyahara (Mori Art Museum), Keisuke Ozawa (independent curator, Associate Director Art Fair Tokyo, lecturer Joshibi), Yasu Nakamori (Curator, Lecturer, Houston), Fumihiko Sumitomo (independent curator) and Roger McDonald (independent curator, lecturer Meiji University, Joshibi).
AIT was registered as a non profit organisation (NPO) by the City of Tokyo in 2002.
Its main initiatives are: Tokyo's first systematic artist in residence program partnering with organisations such as IASPIS, Asialink and FRAME, and an independent contemporary art school called MAD.
The artist in residence program has hosted many artists and curators from around the world. Most stay in AIT's refurbished traditional Japanese store-house in Yukigaya, Tokyo. Most residencies is for three months, although curators tend to come for one month. The residency program is not an open application one, instead operating on a partnership model, with various international arts organisations and Japanese Foundations.
MAD is an acronym for Making Art Different. It offered the first course in curatorial studies in Japan in 2001. In 2011 MAD ceased offering courses and instead initiated a flexible, self-selecting system in which students purchase numbers of lectures to create their own course of study. 111 lectures are offered in 2011.
AIT does not hold a permanent exhibition space, rather working out of an office/ classroom in the area Daikanyama of Tokyo.
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