Arts and Cultural Exchange

 

The Japan Foundation, Manila is excited to announce its upcoming travelling exhibition for the young and young at heart. OMOCHA: Japanese Toys Today will be coming to two museums in the Philippines for its inaugural travel year! The exhibition will open at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila, BGC from May 6 to 31, then move to the Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art, Iloilo from June 27 to July 26. 

The exhibition offers a wide-ranging introduction to toys (“Omocha” in Japanese), from the history of toys cherished across generations, to the latest toys, infused with modern technologies and ideas. Toys, which emerged in the context of popular culture during the Edo period, were originally created as objects to pray for the healthy growth of children. Over the years, they have evolved in various ways, coming to serve not only as a fun way for children and adults to play together, but also as tools for learning and development. Being a source of play for adults as well-becoming multi-faceted items, they too play an important role in different settings across many people’s lives. 

Beloved toy icons such as Gundam, Transformers, Pokemon, Sylvanian Families, and Hello Kitty and many more are sure to ignite a sense of nostalgia and a love for play with visitors across generations. Guests may also look forward to interactive areas in the exhibition, as well as public programs from well-known Filipino toy creators. Admission is free to both the exhibition and side events! 

For full exhibition schedules, admission guidelines, and event details, please visit the social media pages of the Japan Foundation, Manila, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, and Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art. See you at these museums!

Current/s of Exchange: Art Ecologies between the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan 
Panel Discussion
November 26 (Wednesday) | Starts at 1:00 PM
Aldaba Hall, University Theater, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City

REGISTER HERE

Admission to this event is FREE.

 

The Japan Foundation, Manila presents two panel discussions as part of this year’s J-CAP: Jisedai
Contemporary Arts Platform.

Motivated by the overarching theme of the Kuroshio or the Black Current, the diverse panel of artists,
curators, and cultural workers will discuss their experiences working within local artistic ecologies as well as transnational linkages between the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan through platforms such as artist residencies and collaborative projects. The objective of the discussion is to rethink and dismantle the romantic notion of the cosmopolitan, nomadic artist, instead grounding their practice within these complex transcultural assemblages.

J-CAP 2025 is a program in collaboration with Orange Project (Bacolod, Philippines), the Taiwan Art
Space Alliance (Taiwan), and TRA-TRAVEL (Osaka, Japan), with this talk event supported by the
University of the Philippines Diliman Office of the Chancellor, Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts, and the Department of Art Studies.

 

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PANEL 1: TRANSCULTURAL ART ECOLOGIES AND RESIDENCIES IN THE PHILIPPINES, TAIWAN,
AND JAPAN

Discussion on transcultural and local ecologies and artist-run residencies, collectives, alliances, and
spaces from residency organizers in Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines

 

SPEAKERS:

Yu-hsuan Lee, Chairman and Wen-Tsao Lin, Consultant for Taiwan Art Space Alliance, (TASA)

Yu-Hsuan Lee is the Chairman of the Taiwan Art Space Alliance (2024–2026) and Deputy Executive Director of the Accton Arts Foundation, as well as Director of the Art Site of Railway Warehouse in Hsinchu. Since 2010, she has worked as a project manager in Taiwan, Japan, and Finland, focusing on cross-disciplinary collaboration and cultural exchange. She specializes in building shared understanding and leading teams in multidisciplinary projects.

 

 

Wen-Tsao Lin has extensive experience in galleries in the United States, where he developed an art management approach grounded in artistic practice. After returning to Taiwan, he worked across non-profit spaces, public associations, artist residency platforms, and art fairs. Since 2020, he has served as Secretary General of the Taiwan Art Space Alliance (2019.11–2025.11). His previous roles include Executive Director of the 2019 FLAME HK Video Art Fair, Chairman of the Taipei
Art Creator Union (4th and 5th terms), Manager of Open-Contemporary Art Center, and Executive Director of Shin Leh Yuan Art Space.

 

Jemaimah Campos

Gallery Manager, Orange Project
Jem Campos is a cultural worker at Orange Project in Bacolod City, Philippines. With a background in psychology, she is deeply interested in how artists translate emotions into visual expression. Since 2017, she has played a key role in organizing exhibitions and managing the gallery, contributing to the growth of the local art community.

She has been instrumental in organizing and mounting notable exhibitions, including the Orange Project Grand Opening (2018), Monumental: Fathom (2019), Art and Isolation (2020), Majica: Elemental (2022), Pagtilipon-tipon (2024) and recently concluded 20th year anniversary show of Orange Project and Charlie Co’s retrospective, Tugyan sa Tawo: Apat ka Dekada nga Obra ni Charlie Co. Beyond exhibitions, she actively fosters art consciousness in Negros and beyond by helping organize murals, installations, art fairs, residencies, workshops, and various artistic collaborations both locally and internationally.

Con Cabrera

Previous fellow of the Rikuzentakata Artist-in-Residence Program

Con Cabrera is a visual artist and independent curator. She is a faculty member from the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman and has attended the curatorial fellowships of the UP Vargas Museum and the Japan Foundation Third Curatorial Development Program in 2014, Independent Curators International’s Curatorial Intensive Manila in 2016, and San Art’s Uncommon
Pursuits held in Ho Chi Minh City in 2018. She participated in the Rikuzentakata Artist in Residence Program in Iwate and Paradise AIR in Tokyo, both in Japan in 2017 and returned in 2019 to co-curate RT AIR’s Kesen Art and Life Festival.

She started joining group exhibitions in 2006 and had her first solo show in 2011. Cabrera was part of
Manila Biennale’s Open City exhibition curatorial team in 2018 and co-curated Imelda Cajipe Endaya’s
retrospective at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2022. She was the CCP Visual Arts and Museum
Division’s guest curator in 2023 and her concluding project was the intensive workshop Upskilling on
Performance and Visual Arts Curation. She was one of 2024 recipients of CIMAM Travel Grant Award and has attended the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art’s annual
conference held in Los Angeles. Her works have been shown in the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, US,
and Taiwan.

MODERATOR:

Asst. Prof. Mark Louie Lugue

UP Diliman Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts, and the Department of Art Studies
Mark Louie L. Lugue teaches art histories and arts management at the Departmentof Art Studies in the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD). He served as Curator of the UPD Bulwagan ng Dangal University Heritage Museum (2023-2025) and has been serving as Program Development Associate for university collections in the UPD Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts since 2020. His scholarship
and practice revolve around university heritage, collections research, and the modern in the visual arts. He is a Getty Foundation travel award grantee to the 2023 International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) Annual Conference held in Argentina, a scholarship grantee to the 2017 Para Site Workshops for Emerging Art Professionals held in Hong Kong, and a participant to the 2018 Curatorial Development Workshop co-organized by the Japan Foundation Manila, the Philippine Contemporary Art Network, and the UP Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center.

In college, he was among the students selected to be part of the Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange
for Students and Youths (JENESYS) program in 2011, the year of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami,
though the program had to be moved to the succeeding year due to the disaster.

 

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PANEL 2: THE INTERNATIONAL ARTIST IN THE AGE OF (DIS/RE)LOCATION
Discussion on the role of artists and transcultural negotiations and dis/relocations with art residencies,
biennales, art festivals, and other transnational platforms with previous and current J-CAP delegates.

SPEAKERS:

Tomotosi (Japan)

J-CAP 2024 Delegate, Director and Artist of the TOMO City Museum
Tomotosi’s long experience in urban planning and architectural design has led him to the idea that human activities are determined by following existing roads and architecture, but on the other hand, roads and architecture should also be constantly maintained to accommodate new human activities. However, it is also true that roads and architecture cannot be easily altered. Therefore, he has taken
the expedient measure of intervening in human behavior in the city as an artist. He aims to create distortions in urban space and public rules through his actions and to transform people’s movements. As a result, he believes that the ability to propose new ways of using the city will lead to the public maintenance of the city.

 

Miao-chen Huang (Taiwan)

J-CAP 2025 Delegate
Miaochen Huang is a ceramicist, whose work extends to using metal, glass, and mixed media to explore their expressive possibilities. Her practice reflects the emotional tensions between people and the dialogue between humans and their environments. She is also engaged in socially oriented art projects and community co-creation. She has participated in the Matsu Biennial, Poor People’s Taipei Biennial, and the SanYing Art Co-creation Program, producing site-specific works and co-creating with locals.

 

Karl Castro (Philippines)

J-CAP 2023 Delegate and artist-in-residence at TRA-TRAVEL, Osaka

Karl Castro is an artist, designer, and cultural worker whose transdisciplinary practice spans painting, weaving, collage, photomedia, and exhibition-making. He traces architectures of power, memory, and
image, unearthing the afterlives of Philippine modernisms and the erasure of marginalized histories through design and image-based inquiry. He has exhibited in the Philippines and Japan, and works with
communities and institutions on projects bridging art, archives, and political questions. Castro has
received recognition from the Philippine National Book Awards and other institutions. He is a lecturer at
the Ateneo de Manila University, research head of @brutalistpilipinas and Communication Design
Association of the Philippines, and a board member of Concerned Artists of the Philippines.

 

Natsuki Kuroda (Japan)

J-CAP 2025 Delegate
Natsuki Kuroda communicates through photography and believes in the extension of cameras as devices with the power to affirm seeing/being seen. Through concrete events and experiences, she finds problems and issues, and tries to question and resist them in this gradation of seeing. In past projects, she focused on and engaged with people working, living, and carrying out activities in seemingly closed spaces such as senior care facilities, zoos, and hospitals.

 

MODERATOR:

Asst. Prof. Szusza Velasco

UP Diliman Department of Art Studies
Szusza Velasco is an Assistant Professor from the Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines, Diliman (UPD). She holds an MA in International Studies under the Department of Political Science, and a BA in Art Studies (Interdisciplinary) at UPD. She was also an exchange student under the
International Student Program at Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan. Previously, she was a Program Coordinator at the Japan Foundation, Manila, working on arts and cultural exchange initiatives by the Japan Foundation Asia Center which included exhibitions, workshops, and other collaborative platforms. Her practice and research interests center on international relations and exchanges, art histories in Asia, popular culture, and technological mediations in art.

The Japan Foundation, Manila (JFM) launches this year’s J-CAP or Jisedai Contemporary Arts Platform as a trilateral exchange. Inspired by the Black Current, otherwise known as the Kuroshio Current, the program celebrates the flow of artisticexchanges that runs along Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

Two artists, one from Japan and one from Taiwan, will be coming to the Philippines this November through a research residency to learn about the vibrant and thriving art scene around the country. They will be visiting museums, galleries and art spaces around Metro Manila. They will also be immersed in Bacolod’s art district during their stay in Orange Project and will attend the much-anticipated VIVA ExCon 2025 in Aklan. As part of the exchange, they will also be sharing about their own practices through an upcoming panel discussion with fellow artists, curators, and art institutions at the
University of the Philippines Diliman.

 

Delegates

Natsuki Kuroda (Japan) communicates through photography and believes in the extension of cameras as devices with the power to affirm seeing/being seen. Through concrete events and experiences, she finds problems and issues, and tries to question
and resist them in this gradation of seeing. In past projects, she focused on and engaged with people working, living, and carrying out activities in seemingly closed spaces such as senior care facilities, zoos, and hospitals.

 

Miaochen Huang (Taiwan) is a ceramicist, whose work extends to using metal, glass, and mixed media to explore their expressive possibilities. Her practice reflects the emotional tensions between people and the dialogue between humans and their environments. She is also engaged in socially oriented art projects and community co-creation. She has participated in the Matsu Biennial, Poor People’s Taipei Biennial, and the SanYing Art Co-creation Program, producing site-specific works and co-creating with locals.

 

This program is in collaboration with TRA-TRAVEL, Taiwan Art Space Alliance (TASA), and Orange Project.

FREE ADMISSION

<<CLICK HERE TO REGISTER>>

20 October 2025 7:00PM    | Carlos P Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza, Makati City

21 October 2025 4:30PM     | PETA Studio A&B, Quezon City

23 October 2025 10:00AM  | CAP Auditorium, Davao City

25 October 2025 10:30AM  | Xavier University Little Theater, Cagayan de Oro City

The Japan Foundation, Manila (JFM) presents a unique chronicle of the conflict in Gaza as told through traditional Japanese music and storytelling.

Ikusamonogatari II – Stories of Battle in Gaza is a live narration of tales, reflecting the courage, sorrow, and struggles from the conflict-torn city of Gaza, accompanied by the timeless sounds of the Japanese Biwa and Koto instruments. Inspired by the classical style of the Heike Monogatari and its iconic recounting of the Battle of Dannoura, this performance reimagines the art of oral storytelling to reflect the modern-day struggles of the people of Gaza.

Performing the Ikusamonogatari, literally translated to “battle stories,” are two masters of traditional Japanese music, together with one of the Philippines’ foremost wordsmiths.

Hiroko Nagai pursued her mastery of the koto after training as a classical pianist. She is now part of the School of Social Sciences faculty at the Ateneo de Manila University, as well as an instructor at the College of Music at the University of the Philippines. Her work throughout the years has received recognition, including accolades from the Young Critics Circle and the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences.

Keiko Yokota is an actress and Chikuzen Biwa storyteller from Saitama, Japan. Formerly with the Black Tent Theater in Tokyo, she now works independently, performing with the traditional Japanese instrument biwa – both classical Heike pieces and original works in her distinctive style. Her music has taken her around the world, performing in France, Peru, Norway, and the Philippines.

The koto and biwa performed together is a unique occurrence, making this special performance singular and unforgettable; an opportunity to see two beautiful instruments in rare harmony.

Completing the trio of performers is award winning author, playwright, theatre actor, and director Rody Vera. As a playwright, he has written at least twenty-five original plays, ten of which have won Palanca Awards. In 2015, he was awarded the Gawad Tanglaw ng Lahi by the Ateneo de Manila University, and In 2019, he received the Dangal ni Balagtas Award from the Commission on the Filipino Language in recognition of his contributions to Philippine literature.

Ikusamonogatari II – Stories of Battle in Gaza  forges a connection between past and present,  exploring the shared human experiences of grief, hope, and impermanence across cultures and generations. This performance is a tribute to the enduring human spirit and a reminder of the universal themes that bind us all. Because in a war, nobody truly wins—and peace is not just a dream, but our shared responsibility.

The series of performances will kick off in Manila at the Carlos P Romulo Auditorium and the PETA Theater, and will continue in Davao and Cagayan de Oro with venue partners CAP Auditorium and Xavier University-Ateneo de Cagayan:

Admission to all performances is free.

 

Follow JFM’s official social media accounts for updates.