ACC Japan is pleased to announce our 2026 awardees, along with the members of the 2026 ACC Japan Selection Panel, as listed below.

Download PDF >> "2026 ACC Japan Grantee Announcement"

>>Click here for the announcement of all 2026 ACC global awardees. 

 


2026 ACC Japan Grantees

◆ New York Fellowship (6 months in the U.S.) ◆


Saori HALA 
Dance

Hala will investigate the history of bodily performance in New York, the relationship between art and entertainment, and their impact on postwar Japan. Through archival research at the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts, The Kitchen, and MoMA, Hala will trace a lineage from 1960s postmodern dance to interdisciplinary practices since the 2000s. She will examine how bodily performance is valued within the contexts of art and entertainment, and reconsider the history of the American entertainment industry and its influence on postwar Asia in relation to current U.S.–Japan dynamics. She will also explore artist-led initiatives and platforms and models of cross-disciplinary cultural transmission, applying these insights to her platform for performing artists in Japan.
ACC / Saison Foundation Fellow *2
Photo by Nanako Kobayashi

 

TAKIDO Dorita 
Visual Art

Takido will research interconnected environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, and practices of environmental care and coexistence in New York. She will conduct research through dialogues, interviews, and visits with communities that connect nature and art, including museums, community gardens, urban agriculture, bio-labs, and environmentally oriented art projects, while participating in citizen-led initiatives that pursue holistic approaches to ecology and sustainability. She will also visit research facilities engaged in nature- and bio-based practices and conduct interviews. Through conversations with artists, researchers, local residents, and participants in educational programs, she will examine the structures of these practices and modes of access, and reflect on them in relation to the situation in Japan.

 

◆ Individual Fellowship ◆


Yuuki AOKI 
Dance 
Japan → Malaysia (1 month)

Aoki will immerse himself in Malaysia’s Penan community, experiencing their hunter-gatherer practices firsthand. With the support of a cultural anthropologist closely connected to the Penan community, Aoki will participate in daily activities such as gathering, moving, and preparing meals, exploring cultural exchange through nonverbal collaboration in which shared values and bodily awareness can emerge. By experiencing the Penan community’s hunter-gatherer practices firsthand, he will explore new forms of expression that connect urban and hunter-gatherer embodiment and develop his understanding of Penan’s communal and cyclical worldview, which offers important insights for contemporary society. Respecting the community’s perspectives, he aims to gain embodied knowledge of humans in connection with nature, which he will integrate into his creative practice and workshops.
ACC / Saison Foundation Fellow *2
Photo by Chihiro Okamoto

 

Mai ENDO 
Visual Art 
Japan → Indonesia (4 months)

Endo will study the embodied history and practice of Japanese American dancer Teiko Ito (1913–1958), investigating how “Oriental Dance” was transmitted and transformed across Indonesia, Japan, and the United States in the 1930s. Centered in Yogyakarta and Denpasar, Endo’s research will combine archival and oral history collections with dialogue and embodied practice involving local dancers and scholars, exploring how marginalized bodily knowledge and somatic techniques are translated and reconfigured across cultures. In particular, she seeks to reposition the practices of Japanese-American women dancers historically marginalized in wartime Japanese dance studies, examining how Asian diasporic bodies negotiated expressive possibilities under colonial cultural policies and global imaginaries. She aims to make overlooked practices visible and to offer new models and perspectives for intercultural knowledge exchange mediated through the body.
Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller (BHR) Memorial Fellow *1

 

Haruna FURUKAWA 
Ethnomusicology 
Japan → Cambodia (2 months)

Furukawa will investigate the transmission of Khmer traditional music and embodied knowledge through participatory observation, including performance-based learning. Centering on the bamboo flute, khloy, she will work closely with local musicians and instrument makers, seeking to internalize their tacit knowledge and embodied techniques through her own playing. She will also conduct semi-structured and unstructured interviews, record performances and experiment with session-based music-making to document musical practices tied to annual rituals and life-cycle ceremonies, as well as narratives of musical experience rooted in personal and collective memory. Furukawa aims to contribute to sustained international networks, promote understanding and research of traditional music, deepen her own performance practice, and establish a foundation for future collaborative research and cross-cultural artistic initiatives.

 

Seiko HIHARA
Visual Art 
Japan → Vietnam (2 months)

Hihara will conduct research across Vietnam on the history of ethnic embroidery, the social role of handicrafts and handwork, and labor in the garment industry. Her research has a particular focus on tailoring traditions and individual craftsmanship developed during the French colonial period, which have become obscured within contemporary industrial systems. She will also carry out interviews with workers who have experience working in Japan, examining the structures embedded in textile production and handwork in relation to historical and social contexts. She will further examine the transformation of minority embroidery practices into the souvenir economy in the north and, through engagement with local communities, reflect on the structures embedded in textiles, seeking to make visible what remains unseen in Japanese society.
Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group – ACC Fellowship *4
Photo by Naotatsu Kaku

 

Atiqa KAWAKAMI
Kimi IDONUMA
Film/Video/Photography 
Japan → Indonesia, Thailand (3 months)

Kawakami and Idonuma will study alternative film networks in Asia, focusing on collectives that, under challenging political and social conditions, create spaces for screening, production, and education independent of commercial cinema. In Indonesia, they will learn about community management and engagement with local residents, while exploring collaborative workshops and screenings addressing colonial histories between Japan and Indonesia. In Thailand, they will visit Wiwat Lertwiwatwongsa and examine how he has developed screenings, a short film festival, and publishing activities in collaboration with organizations of various scales through the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival and the Filmvirus group. They intend to share their insights in ways that contribute to the development of a sustainable network of film collectives across Asia.

 

Chikako MORISHITA 
Music
Japan → United States (2 months)

Morishita will examine the ideas and networks of postwar experimental music in New York, taking the Japanese composer Michiko Toyama, who was active in 1950s New York, as a point of departure. Morishita has been influenced by post-Cagean practices in Europe, and through this fellowship, she will investigate how experimental music emerging around John Cage was formed, received, preserved, and transmitted. During her stay, she will engage in dialogue with composers, performers, researchers, and archivists to consider connections between historical and contemporary practices. These insights will be applied to her own compositional work and may lead to future collaborations and new productions. By reconstructing Toyama’s practice, she will also re-examine the cultural and institutional inclusivity of the time, and explore possibilities for future cultural dialogues and community formation.
Photo by Koto Hirai

 

Yuske TANINAKA
Visual Art 
Japan → Hong Kong SAR (6 months)

Taninaka aims to study how traditional Chinese medicine is practiced as treatment in everyday life in Hong Kong, focusing on how the body and its conditions are articulated in clinical language and how these practices coexist with contemporary medicine. Building on his research in Japan, South Korea, and Singapore, he will immerse himself in local clinical settings to strengthen the foundation of his ongoing project Time to Heal. Through lectures on pulse diagnosis and acupuncture, as well as weekly sessions with practitioners, he will learn case reasoning and maintain field notes attentive to language, touch, bodily technique, and temporality, informing his sculptural and choreographic practice. He aims to develop deeply embodied research methods and cultural understanding, enhancing future works while offering the public a perspective on East Asia through bodily technique and healing.
ACC Hong Kong Special Anniversary Fellowship *3


*1 The Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller (BHR) Memorial Fellow is awarded to an individual in the field of visual art.
*2 The ACC / Saison Foundation Fellow is awarded to an individual/institution supported by a designated grant from The Saison Foundation.
*3 The ACC Hong Kong Special Anniversary Fellowship is a special fellowship offered within the Individual Fellowship program to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the ACC Hong Kong Foundation.
*4 Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group – ACC Fellowship is supported by the Mandarin Oriental Foundation.
 

 

2026 ACC Japan Selection Panel

Visual Art
Azusa Hashimoto (Curator, The National Museum of Art, Osaka)
Keiko Okamura (Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo) 
Hiraku Suzuki (Artist, Associate Professor, Department of Intermedia Art, Tokyo University of the Arts, ACC 2011)

Performing Arts 
Shinji Ono (Chief producer, Yokohama Arts Foundation / Director, Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse No.1)
Hiroyuki Takahashi (Professor, Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music, ACC 2012)

Music
Yoshitaka Mori (Director, Center of Creative Inheritance for the Future / Professor, Graduate School of Global Arts and Faculty of Music, Tokyo University of the Arts)
Yuji Numano (Professor, Toho Gakuen School of Music)

 

Supported by: 

The Saison Foundation

 

Association for Corporate Support of the Arts, Japan: Arts Fund for the Creation of Society

 

 

 

 

Asian Cultural Council Japan Foundation
G1 Building 3F, 2-6-4 Higashi-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku
Tokyo 140-0002 JAPAN
Tel: 03-4400-4295
Email: acc@accjpn.org
www.asianculturalcouncil.org