Appointment of SIAF2020 Team of Directors
The Sapporo International Art Festival Executive Committee (Chairperson: Katsuhiro Akimoto, Mayor of Sapporo) is pleased to announce the appointment of the team of directors of the Sapporo International Art Festival 2020 (SIAF2020), which is scheduled for the 2020/2021 winter season to leverage more of the features and appeal of Sapporo—a city with snowy winters. Through SIAF2020, we will continue to promote local creativity through introducing contemporary art while publicizing what the city has to offer across Japan and elsewhere.
The past editions of SIAF were stewarded by a guest director, but we are replacing the single director system with a team of directors with particular areas of expertise: two Curatorial Directors, one in charge of contemporary art and the other media art, and a Director of Communication Design, who will communicate the appeal of SIAF in an easily understandable way from a visitors’ point of view.
For the post of the Director of Communication Design, applications will be invited from members of the public at a later date.
The SIAF Executive Committee would appreciate extensive news coverage of SIAF when it announces the period, venues, theme and other details of SIAF2020.
【Curatorial Director of Contemporary Art】* Doubles as the Director in Chief
| Taro Amano
Taro Amano is Curator in Chief of the Yokohama Civic Art Gallery Azamino and a part-time lecturer at Tama Art University, the Joshibi University of Art and Design, Kokushikan University and Josai International University. He is a member of the International Association of Art Critics Japanese Section (AICA JAPAN). After working for the Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Amano was appointed curator of the Yokohama Museum of Art in 1987, when preparations for the museum’s opening were in full swing. In this role, he has been involved in planning numerous exhibitions, including many outside Japan. Amano served as the curator of the Yokohama Triennale 2005 and as the curatorial head of the 2011 and 2014 editions of the triennale. The major exhibitions he curated at the Yokohama Museum of Art and the Yokohama Civic Art Gallery Azamino include “Japanese Art after 1945: Scream against the Sky” (1994), “Louise Bourgeois: Homesickness” (1997), “Yoshitomo Nara: I Don’t Mind, If You Forget Me.” (2001), “Non-Sect Radical: Contemporary Photography III” (2004), “Teppei Kaneuji: Melting City / Empty Forest” (2009), “Ryuichi Ishikawa: Once Thinking, Nothing before the Eyes.” (2016), “Takashi Arai: Bright was the Morning” (2017) and “Shingo Kanagawa: Long Time Span” (2018). |
 Photograph: Shingo Kanagawa |
【Curatorial Director of Media Art】
| Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszycka
Agnieszka Kubicka-Dzieduszyckais a media art curator, project manager and academic teacher. After graduation in Austrian feminist literature at the Wrocław University, in 1994 she joined the organizers of Poland’s first media art festivals. Since then she’s been working on programming and production of 13 successive editions of the WRO Media Art Biennale, the major forum for media art in Poland and a key international event. Since launching the WRO Art Center (2008) she’s co-shaping the development of its program, runs international collaborations and is actively involved in art mediation. She’s curated and managed several EU-funded projects (new commissions, co-productions, touring exhibitions, digitization). Her latest curatorial contributions include Polish program at the AIB18 Biennale in Ii (Finland), exhibitions, workshops and screenings in Ukraine, Sweden, Japan, Germany, Israel. Her continuous work with Japanese media artists includes the “reversible//irreversible//presence”series of exhibitions and screenings by artists from Japan, presented at the WRO Art Center in 2016-2017. |
 Photograph: Zbigniew Kupisz |