Towards New Forms of Artistic Collaboration: An Experiment in Trans-Biennale

Artist, Professor at Tokyo University of the Arts (Department of Painting). Born 1963 in Odate City, Akita, Japan. In the early 1990’s, he set up guerilla art projects –THE GINBURART in Ginza and Sinjuku Shonen Art in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho district (1993). In 1997, he formed an alternative artist initiative called “commandN.” Activities of this group include the international video installation “Akihabara TV” held multiple years in 1999, 2000, and 2002. His work was displayed in the 49th Venice Biennale (2001) Japan Pavilion First & Slow exhibition.

From 2004, he founded a number of art projects including himming in Himi (Toyama Pref.) and ZERODATE in Odate (Akita Pref.) Nakamura then founded 3331 Arts Chiyoda in June 2010 as an independent and sustainable art center. With an extensive background in a variety of expressive activities, starting in summer 2020 he is taking on the challenge of developing the Tokyo Biennale, an art festival that will dig for the cultural and artistic resources underlying the city of Tokyo.

Tenthaus Art Collective is an Oslo-based artist collective that has been working together in various constellations since 2009. Their art practice emphasizes process, focusing on community engagement, collectivity, and inclusivity.

Presentated by Tenthaus, the OVEN Network is a transnational network for artistic exchange. Rooted in collaboration the Oven brings together collectives across Southeast Asia and the Nordics to foster shared learning co-thinking and long-term engagement. We view art and design not as outcomes but as tools for observation friction and transformation.

It takes shape through art projects exhibitions research residencies workshops publications gatherings and moments of exchange adapting to the context around it. We welcome those with a shared curiosity to think collectively hold space for difference and explore new ways of moving forward.

Members:

Ida Uvaas
A movement artist exploring mobility across body, mind, and society. Through interdisciplinary, participatory works, she challenges structures and invites collective experiences across performance, visual art, and site-specific practices. @idauvaas

Shahrzad Malekian
An interdisciplinary artist working across performance, video, and sculpture, they use play to explore power, resistance, and care within public spaces and institutions. Recent exhibitions include SACO Biennial (2025) and Singapore Art Museum (2024). @shahrzad.malekian

Studio150
A Bangkok-based studio founded by Pat Laddaphan and Piyakorn Chaiverapundech, working across art, design, and publishing. Combining graphic design and curatorial approaches, they create socially engaged projects. The studio also co-found Bangkok Art Book Fair. www.studio150.info

Mechu Rapela
Curating porous structures for dialogue that bridge communities through art, care, and emergent forms of shared knowledge.

Nguyễn Phương Linh (b. 1985) and Trương Quế Chi (b. 1987) are longtime friends and colleagues. Phương Linh’s practice contemplates form and time. Allusions to bodily movements in recent works convey her long-standing fascination with the body, its durability, and its resilience. As abstract renderings of social, historical, and autobiographical events and structures, Quế Chi’s works delve into the spectacle of the everyday, its contrasting feelings, and its enigma.

Since 2021, the duo has undertaken collaborative projects as echoes of the synchronous rhythms of their lives that mirror one another. Their works, in juxtaposition, converse and conjure up a visceral sense of weight, height, and ephemerality. Among their shared interests are shadows of intergenerational loss and the corporeality associated with the female body in various aspects and contexts. Their works were presented at the Busan Biennale 2024 and the Asian Art Biennale 2024. Phương Linh and Quế Chi have been active as curatorial board members of Nhà Sàn Collective, an artist-run initiative in Hanoi, Vietnam since 2013.

Supported by The Japan Foundation